Algolagnia
by Chaos-Rose
Summary: Lucius Malfoy lost something. He wants it back - but what if that selfsame desire could destroy him? Darkfic. Angst. SLASH! This story is now COMPLETE!
1. Algolagnia: Chapter 1

Title: Algolagnia

Author: Chaos Rose

Email: lady_rosa_chaotica@yahoo.com

Rating: A big red R for language and situations.

Category: Darkfic. Angst. Implied SS/LM and SS/Evan Rosier slash. 

Summary: Lucius lost something. He wants it back.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Neither is the money.

Author's Note:  Some brief information cobbled together from various sources - 

                         Algolagnia: a noun. 

                         Syllibication: Al – go – lag – ni –a

                         Pronunciation: ahl – gO – lag – nE – ah

                         Etymology: From the Greek _algos = _pain + _lagneia_ = lust.

                         Definition: To derive pleasure/satisfaction from inflicting or enduring pain. Not specifically  

                                            sexual.

There is a school of thought that traces this particular behavior to the lack of normal touch, contact and interaction.

~

Algolagnia

~

Lucius sprawled in the comfortable leather reading chair, relishing the cool of Snape's dungeon domain. It was the mad, boiling throat of August and there was much to drive Lucius quite out of himself – his temper had been short of late, and sleep was elusive. Thus, he had taken to the skies on his broom in search of a cool breeze and quiet not to be had on the ground – and found himself raising a hand to knock on his old friend's door.

They talked of much, and of little. Certain subjects were too new and raw to speak of here and now, but there were other topics of conversation and both men had known each other long enough to steer the shallows and currents of the other's personality.

They spoke of Slytherin's chances to take the Quidditch Cup – after the Triwizards tournament it was a preoccupation that was entirely understandable. Indeed, lately Draco seemed to think or talk of little else. 

Draco was also the subject of discussion – acceptable marks in other classes, high marks in Potions, but Severus felt Draco was coasting and wanted to administer a swift kick in the arse to punt the boy past his OWLS. For Lucius, his heir was a wonder and a torment, of him but almost nothing like him. Severus was more of an influence on Draco than anyone else, really. 

The subjects that did not come up were myriad. From the marks on their left forearms, to Severus' very long meetings with their Master, to Lucius' own long and incredibly painful audience with Voldemort – the less said tonight, the better.

The conversation was always interesting when Severus was around and so they kept to the lightest of subjects without loss of interest, talking the sun down. Dinner was a lingering thing, both working jaws over words as much as over food. Afterward, they repaired to Severus' rooms once more, this time for some of Severus' special stash of century-old firewhiskey. 

Lucius closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the soft-worn leather of the chair. The firewhiskey made a rich, but mellow burning behind his breastbone and for a moment he could feel the past as if it were yesterday. For a moment, he was the Lucius Malfoy who had come to call on the humble post-graduate accommodations of Severus Snape and Evan Rosier – the two 'insane baby wizards' whom he had all but raised. 

Oh, what a pair those two had been! For the sixteen year-old Prefect Lucius had been, eleven-year-old Sev and Ev had been a nightmare of House points crashing to the ground and tunneling through to China.  

There were some subjects that were not to be talked about, yes, but it was time now to speak of this one. 

Eighteen months before Harry Potter would defeat the Dark Lord, Voldemort sent Evan Rosier and Charles Wilkes on an urgent errand. It was an assignment from which they would never return. Severus - named by Evan as next-of-kin – had been dragged down to the Ministry at midnight to identify the body and undergo an interrogation of his own.

"No, I knew nothing of Evan's activities. No, it was not unusual for Charlie Wilkes to stop by, we were year-mates and slept in the same dorm for the better part of a decade. A follower of whom? Are you all mad? Me? I work as a researcher for Gringotts and a lecturer in Potions. I'm working on a dissertation for my Master's. Am I a what? No! Well, yes, I have a lot of texts on alchemy and the like but I'm a bloody STUDENT!"

They had tossed Severus out the doors of the Ministry at dawn - dazed, in shock and brutalized but without a clue as to his affiliations. Lucius had met him, sweating his own orders from Voldemort in the weak morning sun. If Sev had broken under questioning, if there was a hint that the Aurors had turned him, then Lucius' would be the last face that Severus Snape would see in this life. A friendly smile and a quick, painless death were all that he could offer his beloved Sev.  

Instead, Lucius had taken Sev back home, poured a heavy sleeping potion down his quiescent friend and tucked him into bed. He knew that Sev would never turn, ever. After a quick trip home to Narcissa to explain certain things and not-explain others he had returned to the small apartment off Diagon Alley to find instead a milling crowd, a bathtub full of scarlet water, and a small knife gleaming red and silver against the stark white tiles.

"… open from wrist to elbow…"

"… such quiet boys …"

"… like brothers more'n friends …"

"… are they sure that the blonde boy was with You-Know-Who?"

Dumbledore, ostensibly coming to pay a condolence call, had been alarmed at the sound of running water but no answer to his knock. Breaking the wards and busting down the door, the old fool had been the one to find Severus and spirit him back to Hogwarts just short of bleeding to death.

And it had all happened on a suffocating August night, just like this one, sixteen years ago.  Severus had not spoken of it since. 

Severus was stretched out on his battered couch and gazing into the deep amber liquid in his glass as if scrying for any answer that might be within. The top three buttons of his black coat were undone, but other than that he was still as buttoned up and closed off as ever. 

Lucius remembered a different Sev - a feral, wary little thing of blacks and whites, an enigma to those who did not know him and more than a little frightening in his intelligence and perception. Once you got to know him, there was a twisted sense of humor that manifested in odd ways, as well as a fierce loyalty. Once Severus accepted a person, there were seemingly limitless reserves of that loyalty available – and Lucius should know, having reaped the benefits of his friend's focused and intense personality.

Still, the slender, black-haired man could be very hard to read – this being one of the things that made manipulating him so bloody dangerous. One misstep and…

"What is it, Lucius?" Severus tipped the glass back and the firewhiskey streamed past his thin lips, the edge if impatience softened by alcohol.

In no hurry to reply, Lucius swirled the contents of his own glass and took a sip before replying. "I was just remembering." Severus' arched eyebrow invited him to continue, "It was a night much like this one, wasn't it? Hot enough to boil your brain in your head. You never told me, really, what they did to you after they showed you Evan's body."

The flat tone of Severus' answer was a wall, "Crouch had his methods. You know of them from personal experience, Lucius."

Indeed. Indeed. But not what he had asked. 

"You've never spoken of it, Severus."

"No, I haven't." Severus tipped the glass and swallowed the rest of the whiskey. "Nor will I. It's past and there's nothing to be done."

The terse tone, the emptiness in Severus' jet black eyes, the tension that wound the man's shoulders – these things told Lucius where to press, to stroke, to cut. He knew Severus with an intimacy that neither man had ever outgrown and could play him and his emotions like a harp if he so chose. 

And tonight, he so chose. 

Severus had been too far away from him for too long and Lucius had been trying mightily to lure him back – with a notable lack of success. Severus had become skittish in the last decade - as touch-shy as a badly injured animal. To anyone who did not know him well, he was all teeth and claw, snarling and feral. It would take time for Lucius to get him back in hand – and that the sooner was accomplished, the better for both of them.

For that to be done, this wound that had driven into the bone must be reopened without pity, and without remorse. The pain would make Severus pliable again, his need for some sort of solace overriding his will to keep himself immured in the dungeons – and Lucius would be there as he had always been. 

The first incision - "He's dead, Severus."

Severus eyed Lucius sharply, eyes gleaming. "Your flair for the obvious is nothing short of amazing."

"So bury him. Let go of the ghost – nothing will ever bring Evan back." Lucius kept his voice soft, sliding it against the raw edges of the wound, feeling the heat of untreated infection and the seething of the toxins it generated. 

Severus grunted as if he'd been hit, eyes closing then snapping open. 

How Lucius loved Severus' eyes. Such an impossibly deep blue that they appeared black, flecks of silver in the iris making them appear to glitter like jet buttons. So wild, those eyes, and so very expressive once one had gazed into them for hours on end – eyes that could plead, caress, slap, demand.

Or rake, stab, wound. 

"They made sure, didn't they?" Lucius held Severus' glare, speaking softly as he made his second incision.  "The Aurors made sure that there was nothing to work with, didn't they Severus? Not even the Witch of Endor could bring him back to you."

"Fuck you, Lucius." The words were spit out like bits of shrapnel, seeking tender flesh to tear. Severus threw himself off the couch like an animal trying to flee its pain. "Get the hell out."

Oh, yes. The heart of the sickness now - blood and poison, the pain maddening, even worse than the initial injury. Lucius remained where he was, glass in hand, his expression as attentive as if Severus was discussing the merits of helleboraceae versus _amanita phalloides_ or black mamba venom.

"What did they do, Severus. You've never told me; what happened to their bodies?" He knew, of course. The Ministry had to lie like hell to cover up what had actually happened. Even as a young man, he'd had resources. "We both know they're not where they're supposed to be, Severus. Evan. Charles. What happened?"

"Damn you, Lucius. If there's a hell then I hope they ram a spit up your arse and roast you to a crisp." Stalking to the sideboard, Severus' hand found the whiskey bottle, poured the glass full and tossed half of it down his throat. 

It wasn't jealousy. Lucius told himself that time and time again. Lucius had married Narcissa the weekend after graduation and boyish fondness had been reluctantly left behind for respectability. It was only right that Severus and Evan had taken to each other, loved each other. 

The last cut, deep and deep and deep to bring out all of it in one blast of curdled foulness. "Tell me, Severus. Evan was your best friend, your brother, your lover. Tell me why you can't bury your beloved?" 

Severus was as still as if he had turned to stone, every part of him so rigid that he could have been a masterpiece carved from onyx and the finest white marble. 

The words were whispered, but the emotions behind them screamed. "Alden and Pritchard dragged me out of Interrogation and brought me to the morgue." The man of marble trembled, his voice halting and ragged. "They looked… like… lord, they'd been all but skinned alive _Avada Kedavra_ my arse…"

The hitch in the breathing. The tremor in those beautiful, graceful hands as the tapered fingers sought to touch something so many years gone. What was the pain like? The pain of being denied that last touch of cold skin, the last kiss as the lover tried to revoke the irrevocable? 

Ah, but Lucius knew that there was strength in pain. Pain could forge itself in grief to diamond-hard resolve. Pain could steel one against sights that would drive one mad otherwise. Pain could make one endure anything, injury upon agony, just for the chance to taste the ashes of one's enemy. 

Lucius loved Severus, and wanted this for him - to give him that strength and watch him rend the Aurors to tatters of skin and splinters of bone. The time was so near that he could smell it like smoke on a dry winter wind. He rose and went to Severus, folding him into his embrace, resting his lips against the of his once-upon-a-time lover's neck. 

"Tell me." 

Oh, the power of words! Lucius could feel the thrum of muscles tense with pure emotional agony, could feel the howl of grief and loss like a knot behind the sternum. His arms were wrapped around Severus' waist, his hands clasped together as if to embrace or restrain.

A droplet of body-warm water fell on the webbing of Lucius' thumb and forefinger.

"They… tore the sheets off. Told me that this was what was waiting for me if I didn't confess." The words were being jerked up Seveus' vocal cords like knots. "Told me that they could even see burying or burning scum like that, that they weren't even worth the effort. Then… Alden drew his wand, he told me that they sometimes they weren't too picky about making sure the dead were really dead… and he… _Adnihilio_…" 

The last word came out in a half-sob half roar as Severus collapsed, lost in a grief that could not be resolved.  "Banished… nothing left… sent into nothingness… I should have gone with them, Lucius, I should have…"

_I should have died with them. _Unspoken words, but Lucius heard them nonetheless. 

Gently he eased Severus to the floor, turned him in his embrace, smoothing the poison from him with practiced hands and words, adding his tears to Severus' own.

Even as he held Severus, even as he wept with him, Lucius could not help smiling.

Severus was his again.

~

TBC… maybe. 


	2. Algolagnia: Chapter 2

Well. That was unexpected. I sat down with the intent of working on something very different and instead wound up with this. 

Muses are whimsical, capricious creatures. 

More darkness and slash for your reading. Please let me know what you think!

Sincerely,

Chaos

~

Algolagnia

Chapter 2

~

"Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions."

- David Borenstein.

~

Humans have a need to touch and be touched, this is something Lucius Malfoy considered a basic fact. The skin, the largest organ of the body, has uncountable nerve endings oriented outward, to feel the contact of another living body. Touch could be soothing, arousing, electrifying, or painful. Touch evoked emotions and reactions more violently than any of the other senses. 

A child in the womb exists in a world of touch. Wrapped securely in it, carried about for nine months in a warm, dark place, the child surrounded by the symphony of the body and swaddled in living flesh. 

A smile tipped Lucius' thin lips upward – Narcissa might contend that if the sounds of blood, heart and gut were a symphony, then the violent morning sickness she had endured with Draco must have been the physical equivalent of punk rock. 

Then one day, that living cradle contracts, pushing the babe out into a cold, sterile, brutally silent place. With the neurological development incomplete, the newly detached human is presented with pain, discomfort and the loss of its perceived safety. Lucius had a theory that all human desire for touch came from a need to capture just a fleeting moment of that safety and contentment.  Muggle or wizard, people would go to extremes of behavior to feel that.

But touch could also be a weapon. As much as one needed to be touched, some touch remains unwelcome – a violation of borders, less about touch than about power. In time, touch could become painful and even while craving touch, the one so psychologically scarred would go to extremes to protect themselves from it. They would protect/imprison themselves behind walls of behavior, walls of flesh, or shun all contact with other beings.

Yet, the need would remain a gnawing hunger in the body, sinking into the soul, conflicting with the desperate reasoning of the waking mind and stirring the deep waters of the subconscious.

It was Lucius' art to both break and heal, his life's ambition to find that sweetly perfect synthesis of power and pleasure.

Sexual touch, the most obvious tool in his reach, was not the one that he would use tonight, and perhaps not for some few nights to come. As much as he might yearn for that ultimate culmination of touch, to apply this too soon would ruin what he was trying to achieve. Even as Severus had evidently desired that long-denied comfort, Lucius had to gently redirect that need – a very difficult task, even for one so experienced as Lucius.

Good lord, the man could kiss! 

Yet Lucius had held Severus while grief tore chunks out of the man, soothed him, wiped tears and snot. He then dosed Severus with a draught of dreamless sleep, stripped him to his shorts and put him chastely into his empty bed.

What Lucius had managed tonight was a breach of Severus' walls, a simple a break in the first line of fortifications. That Severus' reaction to such was so violent simply showed the absolute necessity of Lucius' continued attentions. 

The initial metaphor of sickness was an apt one. Now that the wound had been reopened and was draining, Lucius could tend to all the things that had been put wrong by the toxic buildup of years.

A deeply sensual smile lit his face; it was nothing less than a blessing to have such joy in one's work.

It was nothing less than ecstasy to have one's work able to love in return. 

From the time that Severus was eleven, Lucius had suspected that the withdrawn and intense personality was the result of an absence of touch and affection. From what information he had gleaned concerning Severus' parents, it seemed that the boy was raised entirely by hirelings. Severus' father was a brilliant - if remote and austere – academic of great prominence, with a reputation as a hard taskmaster. His mother was a generally absent society butterfly who regarded her son as a living toy to be taken out and displayed or put away at whim.

A small amount of attention, affection, a little purposeful cultivation of boy-Severus repaid young Lucius with a heady and sweet bounty of dedication and adoration. 

Tipping the glass of firewhiskey to his lips, Lucius thought that the most perfectly aged of vintage intoxicants could not compare to his first taste of Sev. 

A chuckle escaped him - and nothing could ever compare to the consternation caused by his very blatant seduction of a very much underage Sev. Even within Slytherin – where house loyalty encouraged the keeping of silence even more thoroughly than _Fildelius_ - it was the cause of some awkward comment. 

Even after Lucius had left school, married and taken up the management of familial affairs, his love for Severus had not waned. They would meet whenever they could, and once Lucius' sharp-witted lady wife had noticed, she encouraged this. While Narcissa would not brook the presence of another woman in her marriage, she had always been terribly fond of Severus. 

However, in the end, it hadn't been enough. By the time Sev was in his fifth year, he and Evan Rosier shared much more than a dormitory. By all the accounts that Lucius had heard, it was indeed love. 

It was then that Lucius experienced a bout of sickness all his own. His brain hurt, his eyes were hot and grainy, his stomach churned with bile and his skin ached. He wanted to bite so much that his face cramped, wanted to scream, to howl in fury and agony. This sickness clouded Lucius' exacting mind, it _reduced_ him – and that was something he could not tolerate.

With the ruthlessness of a gardener yanking out weeds, Lucius set out to rid himself of jealousy. Much of the malady had been allayed by the time Severus was out of school, and Lucius was a frequent visitor to the garret flat where Severus and Evan had taken up residence. Lucius had been welcomed with open arms – and open bed. 

While it was good to know that both of his insane baby wizards adored him without question, there was still a nagging distance. The distance was closed one evening at a very bohemian club where the main intoxicant was heady conversation. 

Sev had been expounding on his frustration at being denied access to a particular tome that he felt vital to his research. Evan was in much the same state and Lucius had had it to the teeth with the timid, tails-between-their-legs, Muggle-whipped curs of the Ministry. 

"Knowledge isn't good or evil. Power isn't good or evil! It's the uses that both are put to that define it!" Sev growled, slamming his hand on the tabletop, "Are we so fearful, such cowards that we let some outdated morality made by fearful people make our choices for us?"

Lucius had been about to reply when a cultured voice spoke from one of the deep wing chairs near the fire. "Such sense from the young, but then fresh eyes often read the same page differently from the tired eyes of age." 

The voice had been that of the man who was now their Lord. 

Lucius had corralled his wayward wizards, with the three of them taking the Dark Mark together a few months later. As long as he could be near Severus, Lucius was content. Drawing the younger man back to him was easier in proximity, with the added bonus of finally throwing off the tyranny of the ever-breeding Muggles and teaching the Mudbloods their proper place. 

Then disaster. 

Evan and Charles died at the hands of the Aurors, becoming martyrs to the Cause. Of course Lucius had mourned for Evan, vowed bloody revenge, and naturally swore that he would take care of his dear, grief-stricken Severus. Then Dumbledore stole a devastated and malleable Severus right out from under Lucius' very hands. 

When Severus finally returned to the circle after a month under Dumbledore's care, he was changed. Unless one knew him very well, it might pass unnoticed, but to Lucius it was as visible as a _Morsmordre_. The stone walls of Hogwarts were paper next to the walls around Severus' soul. 

Though still obviously loyal – the Dark Lord was adept at _Cruciatus_ and _Imperius_ – Severus was so deeply withdrawn that he could disappear in a room full of people. Attempts to draw him out occasionally resulted in open bloodshed, and his emotional state was so violently unstable that Voldemort kept Severus at his side rather than send him into the field – the inner circle could not afford to lose any more members. 

By that time, Lucius had other distractions. Narcissa – after many miscarriages and stillbirths – was near to term. Selflessly, Sev produced nutritive, strengthening potions to help her sustain her pregnancy. At dawn on a February morning, Draco Severus Malfoy came howling lustily into the larger world. 

Lucius gently placed the swaddled infant in Severus' arms, and knew instantly that he had made the correct choice. The blank eyes sparked with determination, and Severus' face was once more that of a living man rather than that of a walking corpse. 

But still, the walls. 

Even after… well, whatever that bloody Potter spawn had done, after Voldemort's not-quite-death, the walls remained. A year after that, Dumbledore came seeking someone to replace Professor Boulstridge – the old Potions master was finally retiring. Would Severus take his place?

Sev accepted and his retreat from the rest of the world was complete. Severus left the school only for the summer holidays, and then it was to go to the far corners of the world in pursuit of his cardinal ambition – knowledge. 

It wasn't until Draco's second year that Lucius had been able to come up with an acceptable pretext for visiting Hogwarts. He was on the board of Governors for the school, and his boy was Seeker for his house Quidditch team, it was perfectly plausible that he would turn up a good bit. 

Severus had seemed delighted to see him, a rare smile gracing his face when Lucius turned up at the first game of the season. But Lucius' efforts to crack the self-imposed isolation came to naught. 

Lucius tipped the last amber drop of firewhiskey into his mouth, swirling it about his tongue as he regarded cold fireplace. What had tipped the balance this evening? Was it simple serendipity? Was Severus feeling his isolation just as Lucius went in search of something he could not define? 

Whatever cosmic hiccup had altered their orbits, Lucius was not going to argue with it. He would have Sev back, and Sev would come willingly – and then…

Narcissa expected him when he returned. Draco was at the Pucey's for a week. Young Adrian – whom Draco had succeeded as Slytherin's Seeker – had offered not only tickets to a Falmouth Falcon's game but a very intense course of Seeker training. Draco had been gone almost before his bags were packed. 

Lucius set the empty glass on the side table. He could spend a few days insuring that the careful work he had done tonight would take. The first few days could be critical and Lucius always hated rush jobs – to take one's time and watch the gradual shaping of the work was deeply satisfying. 

His loins stirred in anticipation, lust's sharp blade cutting through him, and Lucius petted his incipient tumescence as if to soothe it. There was time enough for that, patience and self-restraint on his part would make the consummation of desire all the sweeter.

In the end, even Severus would agree that it had been worth the pain. After all, pain given in love was not really pain, was it? Pain could be pleasure and pleasure could be pain – if given in love and care. 

Lucius' arousal agreed with great enthusiasm, raising his trousers in vigorous salute. 

As controlled as he was, Lucius knew that getting anywhere near Severus whilst in this state would cause him to abandon reason - the man was temptation wrapped in smooth, white, salty-sweet skin. 

No, Lucius would have to take care of this himself. 

Unbuttoning his trousers, he wrapped his hand around his overeager anatomy and abandoned himself to the easy pleasure of self-touch. With a familiar, steady rhythm, he thrust into his hand, each stroke building his urgency, inflaming his skin until he swore that he could feel each tiny impulse along each nerve. Finally, Lucius abandoned rhythm altogether, stroking and thrusting, clawing for and shuddering silently through his release. 

He lay panting with eyes closed for a long moment before taking a silk handkerchief from his pocket and cleaning up his seed. 

Rising, Lucius went into the bedroom and stripped down to his shorts. There was a tightly curled lump under the blankets in the middle of the bed. Even under the influence of one of his own potions, Severus was wound far too tight. He slipped under the covers, the cotton of the sheets so tightly woven that they were velvety against his skin. 

Even under the forbidding exterior, Sev retained his sensual nature. It would make things much easier. 

Wrapping himself around Severus, Lucius buried his nose in the black hair, inhaling with unabashed delight as one might a particularly rare and fragrant bloom. He feathered quick light kisses down the vertebrae of the neck and sighed. 

It would be a great effort, for both of them, but he was equal to the task. He would break Severus very gently, with every care and put him back together again just the way he used to be. 

Just before sleep claimed him, he caressed an ear with a fingertip and a whisper. "It will be all right again, Sev. I promise not to hurt you more than I must."

~

TBC?

~


	3. Algolagnia: Chapter 3

Dear Readers,

Thank you for all the feedback! I hope this bit pleases as well.

Sincerely,

Chaos

~

Algolagnia

Chapter three

~

"Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out a candle and blows in a fire."

- Francois de La Rochefocauld

~

The first thing Lucius did upon awakening was to make sure that there were no sharp objects in the vicinity.  Then he turned his attention to rooting out any ingestible poisons. There was no rope about, but just in case, he Banished anything that could be twisted into a noose. He had underestimated Severus once before, he would not do so again. 

Severus continued to sleep, deeply and soundly, curled in on himself in the middle of the bed. Lucius checked on him often, listening to the deep and even breathing, undisturbed by dreams.

A house elf – not the traitorous Dobby – came to his call. He extracted information from the creature and insured its silence, dismissing it with orders to bring meals at regular intervals.

There would be no other staff members here for some time. Filch was attending to a sudden illness in his family and the half-giant Hagrid was off to parts unknown, leaving the school to Severus for the last two weeks of August. 

Two weeks was time enough. 

Assured of Sev's continued somnolent state, Lucius borrowed the bath. The shower was good and hot, the soap something sandalwood with a rich spice, and he took time to cure himself of his morning condition. The memories impelling that condition were enhanced by the sound of the hot water on tiles – the potency of memory being in no wise abated by the years.

Really, it hadn't been his plan to seduce Severus that early. Lucius was attentive to the Dark Arts prodigy, reaping the bounty of his cultivation with great satisfaction. Insofar as young Severus was concerned, Lucius Malfoy had hung the moon and set the stars in their courses. The boy would have done anything that Lucius had asked of him, and done it without thought or hesitation. 

However, when the boy started taking four showers a day, spending hours alone in hot water with only a bar of soap for company, it was not too difficult to know what was going on. 

Lucius, who had been taken by his first lover at the age of fourteen, found himself magnetized by the thought of having Severus. It was not that the boy was devastatingly handsome, he wasn't. However, under the feral eyes, remorselessly black hair and sallow skin, there was a sense of something so sweet, so rare and fine that Lucius could not deny himself the pleasure of it. 

Flirtation. Innuendo. Come hither. Move away. Lure. Drop a hint here. A suggestion there. A dance of senses and perceptions. A look. A whisper. 

A touch.

If it was possible for as gentle an art as seduction to be utterly ruthless, Lucius Malfoy made it so, until Severus had begged for what Lucius intended him to take all along. 

A subtle as a finger laid on a shoulder. As blatant a pair of wet, soap-slick bodies writhing in a frenzy of mutual need. A vital, and raw and needy as a voice that cried out, "Lucius, oh!oh!oh! Fuck! Lucius!" in the throes of passion and desperation.

And it was good.

Lucius bound the too-young Sev to him as surely as with chains, using love and sex and need as his tools of choice. 

It helped that Severus was such a willing captive. 

The boy had even stood as best man at Lucius' wedding that summer, with a brave smile and a heart breaking so loudly that Lucius could hear it across the ballroom at the reception.

To finally mend that, yes, that would be a very good thing, 

And to show Severus the way back to the true path, to let him free the strength within and take vengeance for his friend Charles and his poor, slaughtered Evan – also very good things.

Lucius wrapped a towel around his waist and hunted a comb. What to do then? What to do when he had accomplished his work? 

Narcissa had always understood. Lucius had a pearl beyond price in a true and good wife. As canny and cunning as a vixen, as beautiful as a rose, and Slytherin to her marrow was his dear 'Cis. How often had she sent him to Severus? Who had first given him the idea of Severus being Draco's godfather? She would be happy for this, as she had fretted a good deal about Severus over the years. 

He would owl her as soon as possible and explain the circumstances. 

The Dark Lord… now he might be trouble. Voldemort was a jealous master, more than once he had made very public examples of those he felt were less than appropriately devoted to him. The LeStranges were one of his favorite targets, and he would often take one while the other watched. Lucius had often wondered if they had been looking for their Lord in order to return him to power or to finish the job. 

Lucius swore that he would not yield Severus again. Not to anyone, not for anything. 

"Mine," he vowed to his reflection. "Mine alone."

Helping himself to Severus' wardrobe – all in stark black and starched white, but of first-rate quality – Lucius clothed himself in a pair of plain black silk pyjamas and climbed back into bed. 

On top of the covers. 

Lucius remembered quite well what Severus was like in the morning and was certain that his self-control would not survive a determined assault. 

Severus stirred, stretching until his hand found Lucius' chest and then following it with the rest of him. Face pushed into the silk covering Lucius' chest, arms twining so seductively, Severus gave a soft moan and slipped back into sleep. 

Lucius fought for the needed detachment and _sang froid_ he would need to do his best work. With Severus' rhythmic breath heating his skin through the silk, it was very hard to do. 

Other things were very hard, too. 

Like trying to think when all of one's blood was leaving one's brain for a vacation in one's prick.

He might have underestimated the attraction of Severus and overestimated his own willpower.

Nonsense. Severus was a Potions Master, and hence an odd breed of cat, true. However, Lucius had made his study that of the mind and its workings in relation to the body. There was a time when he even considered a career in medical research, shelving it only when he realized that he would not be permitted human test subjects. His association with Voldemort provided him with no end of patients and in the years of their association and after, Lucius had improved his mastery of the craft beyond anything he had ever dreamed. 

Severus had been his first subject and his first beloved. Even if Lucius had made mistakes of youthful ardor it was not too late to rectify them.  He cuddled Sev closer, his hands gliding over smooth, pale skin, his breathing matching the deep in and out, Lucius fell asleep in Severus' arms. 

When he awoke, later by enough time for breakfast to be served, Lucius could hear the shower running. After helping himself to a very light breakfast, skimming the headlines in the Prophet and brushing his teeth – the shower was still running. 

Lucius sighed. Severus had never learned to deal well with emotional storms, and would withdraw until he had regained control of himself – something that Lucius could not permit. For this to be effective, Lucius needed him raw, hurting, grieving and hence vulnerable.

Lucius opened the door and was engulfed by a billow of steam. "Are you trying to drown yourself in the shower?"

"Since you removed the plug from the bath, I thought that it might be worth an attempt." 

Still an edge to the words, but about what Lucius expected. Lucius had cracked the walls damned hard last night and Severus was still smarting from it.

"Well, since it's not working, you might as well come out and have breakfast."

"Not hungry."

_Oh, yes, you are, _Lucius thought, _so hungry that you're all skin and bone and teeth. _

Instead of replying, Lucius flicked his wand at the shower, "_Diffinimber"_

The shower cut off and Severus swore so badly that Lucius arched an eyebrow. For a man who maintained that vulgarity was the resort of the dullard, this was drastic indeed.

"Now come out of there and have something to eat." Lucius reached for the shower curtain.

"_Accio_ towel." Severus faced him with wary eyes as he pulled the curtain aside, wrapping the towel around his lean hips.

Good lord, but the man was still good to look at. Better than ever, in Lucius' never-humble opinion. Never muscular, Sev had always looked deceptively fragile. Even as he was nearing forty, the long, lean muscles simply accentuated the elegant lines of the man. A light dusting of black hair curled around his pale sand-colored nipples, made a path down his torso and disappeared under the towel. 

Lucius fought back a surge of desire that tried to close his throat. "You didn't used to be so shy," he observed as Severus stepped out of the shower. 

"There are a great many things that I did not used to be." He turned his back on Lucius, going to the basin. 

And all down that back were pale pink lines, jagged against the white perfection of Severus' skin. Even two decades after they had been given, Lucius felt a hot upwelling of stark hatred. Severus caught his eyes in the mirror - blue-black to silver-grey – and smirked. 

"Why do you keep them? Do you really need the reminders of how they treated you?" That smirk, how many times had he seen it provoke this reaction? It was an expression that asked to be kissed from his face, or removed with a flying fist. "Why? Any competent mediwizard could remove them in an afternoon!"

Black, Lupin, Pettigrew and Potter. Lucius hated them, not for himself, but for Sev and what they had done to him.  Moving closer, he stood behind Severus until he could feel the heat rising from the shower-warm body. Deliberately, never breaking their locked gaze, he touched a fingertip to one scar, tracing it into another.

Severus started, shivered, under his touch. "I keep them because they remind me of what I owe."

Lucius continued to trace scar into scar, rip into tear, feeling the thicker, less elastic flesh. "What is owed must be repaid," he murmured, adding breath to the caress. 

The heat in his body, the insistent ache of his sex - to desire like this was both ecstasy and torment to Lucius. He moved closer, the silk of the pyjama shirt brushing against Sev's skin, and lowered his mouth to the webwork of scar tissue. Their eyes remained locked in the mirror as Lucius touched a ridge of tissue with his tongue.

"God…! Lucius…" Severus jumped, his hands white-knuckled as he gripped the edge of the basin, color gilding his cheekbones as he flushed with arousal. Quick, rough breaths, the silken purr of his voice giving way to gasps.

Sublime.  

Lucius abandoned himself to the taste of skin, the droplets of water infused with the taste of the man. His hands roamed the lean torso, the skin of his palms tingling at the feel of it, so longed for and so missed. It was a delight to feel the muscles shift, going taut as Lucius made a feast of his old lover's back and shoulder. It was music to hear him, feel him giving over – to feel those walls crumbling with ever kiss, lick or nip. 

With each touch, the distance was closed until Lucius was pressed tightly against Sev's back, grinding against him as he slipped a hand under the towel. Smiling against the skin of Severus' neck, Lucius gave a squeeze to what he found there.

Severus' low, shuddering groan nearly brought him to orgasm right them and there.

So much for not using sexual touch. Touch did not get much more sexual than holding someone else's primary sexual organ - though it might be effectively argued that this was actually about giving the patient permission to touch and be touched in a fully consensual manner. 

The debate vanished from Lucius' forebrain as Severus turned in his embrace and kissed him. 

Devoured him. 

Lucius found his back against the wall, his fingers tangled in Sev's hair as Severus' hard, insistent mouth tried to suck all reason from him. Tongues wrestled, teeth ground and bit hard enough to bruise – interspersed with this almost-violence were kisses so tender that it made Lucius' eyes sting. 

Towel and pyjama pants had gone missing. The shirt hung open and they were flesh to flesh, locked in an embrace so tight that the only way to be closer would be to fuse their skin. Severus' hips rocked against Lucius in a beguiling rhythm, sex to sex, creating a delicious friction and it was getting… so… difficult to breathe… properly.

Tearing his mouth from Severus' – so hard to do because dammit the man could kiss! – Lucius gasped, "Impatient?"

Sev's answer was less spoken than growled. "Celibate."

Oh, good lord. 

Lucius slammed his mouth back over Severus' and the battle began anew, this time accompanied by increasingly bold caresses.

Somehow they were back in the bedchamber and from Severus' moans, well past the point of no return. Lucius pulled his mouth from Severus' and tried to regain some control of the situation.

"Bed."

Severus pulled Lucius close, bit his earlobe and murmured, "Floor," then tucking a leg behind Lucius' knees, took them there.  

Anything Lucius might have had to say on the matter was swiftly lost in the sensation of wet, sucking heat engulfing his left nipple. Attempts to reassert any control over events were met with light, but threatening bites and  - for the moment – Lucius' overriding sense of urgency came not from between his ears, but between his legs.

"Ah!" Lucius was hit with a jolt of sensation that arched his back off the floor. That was not what he'd meant when he told Sev to come out of the shower and eat something! 

Lacing his fingers through Sev's hair, Lucius pulled him away from his current activity. 

He managed it only with great difficulty. Once Severus was focused on something, 'single-minded' did not begin to describe it. He'd forgotten how hungry Sev could be, how much he liked to kiss and lick, bite and suck.

Severus rested his chin on Lucius' abdomen, his dark gaze filled with so much emotion that it stole Lucius' breath. Anger, passion, love, need – it was a hurricane at midnight and Lucius felt his vaunted detachment waver, not from fear but from a desire to be lost in that storm.

Oh, this was not the way that this was supposed to happen. Not at all.

He wet his lips, "Severus…" and why did it feel like his soul itself was woven into the simple utterance of a name? 

As if that name had been summons and command, Severus flowed up his body and Lucius' last rational thought was that he was going to drown, that there was no way to stand before this force of nature he had unleashed. And Sev was kissing him and he couldn't breathe almost like he was under water but there was fire inside him and in Sev oh good lord Sev he couldn't have enough and he needed yes touch me _there_ and so good so good!

"Don't stop touching me please never stop touching me!" he gasped when Severus freed his mouth.

There was a small, broken sound from deep in Severus' throat, "I never stopped."

At those words, Lucius found out that it was possible to drown and go up in flames at the same time. 

Severus' hand was seeking and Lucius urged him on with love-words, sex-words and one whole-bodied physical 'yes!' Control gone and he didn't miss it because he could not, not for anything, miss this or let this not happen.

There was pain, yes, it had been longer than he liked to think about, but it was good pain and the burning ache merged seamlessly into the fluid fire in his veins and spit and fingers and, "Now… oh now please…" and he was going to have the mother of all rug-burns on his back but it was good it was so good to have Sev in him and fast and good and hard and head thrown back gasping 'Lucius! Lucius!" and oh no mercy!

A quick, practiced hand on the part of him clamoring for relief and Lucius was nearly sobbing from the sheer overload. 

Too much.

Body convulsing, Lucius nearly blacked out - lost in a blinding white rush of rhythm and sensation that let him up only to pull him back down as Severus followed him seconds or minutes or hours later.

Gasping, trembling, sweating and spent they lay on the floor for a very long time - black and white, wrapped in each other's embrace.

~

TBC

~


	4. Algolagnia: Chapter 4

Dear readers,

Thanks for the feedback!

In this chapter, things take an… unexpected turn. ::: very evil grin :::

I hope that you will enjoy this bit, and will come back for what I have brewing in chapter five.

Id. Ego. Superego.

Conscious. Subconscious.

And are motivations always what they appear to be?

As always, please let me know what you think.

Sincerely,

Chaos

~

Algolagnia

Chapter four

~

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul.

- Carl Gustav Jung

~

Some time later, Lucius lay wakeful. Severus was sleeping the sleep of the endorphin-soused, leaving him to frown up at the paneled canopy of the massive four-poster, deep in thought as he tried to backtrack every step of the journey to this moment. 

What the hell happened? 

Well, from the soreness in his arse, it was not difficult to figure out  - Severus had fucked him silly. It was just very puzzling as to how the table had been turned. The certainty of the morning had evaporated, the direction that he once thought sure was vanished, and for the first time in a very long time, Lucius was in turmoil.

Last night, Lucius had made some very concrete and linear plans. Early this morning, he had embellished them, allowing for some flexibility in the face of the unexpected. 

Later this morning, his self-control had gone right to hell and his plans were now snarled in a Gordian knot. 

He examined Severus' actions, looking for clues. 

Celibate. That was something Lucius had never expected, but it explained a great deal. In penance for not dying with Evan and Charles, Severus had sought to deny himself all contact with others. Initially, this had alleviated some of Severus' emotional pain – there was no effort made to express his grief or rage and the horrible agony that went with that effort. However, his isolation had turned on him at some point and became a dungeon instead of a hermitage. 

There was a prickling in the back of Lucius' mind – the sickness of jealousy, the malady that he could almost cure, but never be rid of completely. With extreme distaste, Lucius examined it. 

Why was it here?

Because Severus mourned his Evan so completely that he had never taken another lover? Or even sought comfort in the embrace of an old one? 

Those questions led him to no answers, only into other questions. If Severus had been celibate from Evan's death until this morning, what had led him to break the custom of years? What had turned him from needy and accepting the night before to insistent and aggressive this morning? 

Lucius was not overly adherent to restrictive and constraining roles, feeling that mental rigidity was the mark of a lesser mind. Sometimes one needed to fuck, sometimes to be fucked. Passive and aggressive were merely states of mind as much as pain and pleasure. Indeed, sometimes the only cure for a given condition was painful, but if the long-term affliction was more unpleasant than short-term pain, might not the choice be obvious? 

With a frown and a slap to his wayward thoughts, Lucius crooked his mind back to the path.

Severus had simply wanted the comfort of sex more than he had wanted to maintain his isolation. 

Furthermore, Lucius should well have known from past experience that the one sure way to make Severus want something was to appear to deny it to him. For all Lucius' gentle protestations that he would not take advantage, and that you'll see that I'm right in the morning and shh, love, shh – well, he really should have known better. 

And what of Lucius' own conduct? What of that? Hmm?

Wanton to say the least, and ill-advised self-indulgence even with its best face on. 

Lucius flushed, his muscles twitching involuntarily. It was not like him to be so… needy. Even on the rare occasions when he was getting a thorough fucking, he was always in perfect control. Somewhere, he had made a misstep and as pleasant as the short-term consequences were, he…

… he really did not want to know what form the long-term consequences would take. When asked to examine them, something inside him looked up and said very clearly, "No, thank you. I don't believe I will."

This was very disturbing. 

Severus stirred and rolled over, wrapping an arm across Lucius' waist and snuggling close. How often had they lain like this, all those years ago? Lucius felt a dull ache in his chest when he remembered the adoration in Severus' eyes, how whole-hearted and… innocent that love had been. Evan Rosier had been a bit more cynical, but Severus had been utterly unworldly - frighteningly adult in his boy-body, voraciously intelligent, but a true _naïf._

Perhaps that was wry it was so easy to pluck him away from others who might have influenced him. Most children are very much concerned with belonging, but Severus had been raised with very minimal human contact, all of it with adults. Hirelings were hirelings and from what Lucius was able to figure out, none ever remained long enough for Severus to form any attachment. 

So, when Severus came to Hogwarts - small, thin, quiet, and already adept at magic that some seventh years could not perform – the 'pack' saw the different one and turned on him with a vengeance. 

However, once that hat called, "Slytherin!" Severus had defenders, more loyal than blood, more a family than a House. 

Lucius had been given the responsibility of tending the first years, and given a free hand. Of those boys, two were dead, one in Azbakan, one a pathetic coward with a low-rank job at the Ministry and…

Severus – a recluse, so scarred and cynical, so well armored against the world that it was painful. But there was something under all the practiced defenses, something that Lucius remembered and needed.

Lucius firmed his resolve. It was not too late and he had not lost so much ground that the goal was irretrievable. How many times had he delved souls in this same setting? A dim room with a soft bed became a safe and comfortable haven where the deepest parts of the self could be laid bare. 

But how to start? Lucius' pale fingers slipped through ink-black hair, the silken texture buzzing along his nerves.

As if in answer and still deeply asleep, Severus pressed his lips against Lucius' skin, arousal percolating through his sleeping mind. How often had he woken Severus with kisses and caresses, delighting in the responses of his slumber-fogged lover?

Often enough to know how very well it worked. 

The smile returned to Lucius' face, his body affirming the memory.  

And he knew exactly what he wanted to do. It was time to see if Severus was still as sensitive in certain spots as Lucius remembered. 

Sliding down in the bed, he brought his face even with Sev's. With slow kisses, he began to map the face he loved. Cheeks, chin, eyelids, and even that slash right between his eyebrows was something for Lucius to savor. 

Severus was so relaxed in sleep that it was as if a decade had been lifted from him. Oh, for those ten years back! Give Lucius a time-turner and there was so much that he would undo!

A soft baritone hum of contentment urged Lucius on, adding caresses to kisses – though to be strictly truthful he could not stop touching Sev any more than he could stop breathing. The loss of control disturbed him but more disturbing was to be…

The thought was banished as Sev opened his eyes and flowed into Lucius' embrace like some creature from a wet dream, all sleep-flavored kisses and warm skin. Was it absence, or had fifteen years time merely distilled what was there, making Severus into a purer essence of himself? Whatever it was, Lucius was as powerless before this as he would be under veritaserum. 

Rolling Severus onto his back without breaking the kiss, Lucius' tongue delved deep into Severus' mouth. It was as if his lover was melting under him, around him, drawing him in. Breaking the kiss, Lucius stared down at Sev, _his_ Sev, with a feeling that he could not put name to – and felt fear brush at the edges of his control, but could put no reason to that fear.

Severus raised his hand, fingers brushing Lucius' cheek, winding through his hair, and pulled him gently back down. The kiss was so tender, but so intense that Lucius could not have broken it if he knew he would die in the next minute. The something that Lucius needed, craved, must have was in that kiss, behind it, all through it and it nearly brought him to tears. The sound that came up from his chest, breaking low in his throat, was one that he thought he could not make. 

It was Severus who broke the kiss, gasping, "What you need, it's yours. Always has been. Take it."

Something in Lucius' body, in a place he could not quite pinpoint, gave way. He lost himself in the taste of Severus' skin, the tiny points of nipples, the texture of fine black hair, the taste and scent of his sex. Not stopping there, Lucius set out to remap every part of his beloved's body. He revisited places almost forgotten and joyfully rediscovered – the inner join of thigh and torso, the back of the knees, the palms of the hands and those beautiful tapered fingers. 

Lucius rediscovered how to make Severus purr, whine, curse and plead. All through it, he felt almost as if he was lost, only now able to find a familiar path home.

He feathered kisses down Sev's spine, leaving behind the strange, irrational thoughts – drowning them in passion and desire. The play of muscle and bone, sinew and tendon under his mouth was pure delight. Severus was moaning threats and endearments liberally laced with obscenities before Lucius was two-thirds of the way down. 

He stopped, grinning against Sev's tailbone.

"Lucius… you beautiful… bastard!"

Lucius tsk-tsked and bit Sev on the left buttock, making him yelp. "My parents were married, Sev, and I was even born ten months after the wedding. Now ask nicely, I taught you better than that."

"Please?" Purred as Severus looked over one shoulder. The man's voice was devastating!

Lucius pretended to consider. The first time he had done this to Severus, Lucius damn near had to peel him off the wall behind the bed. 

He moved his mouth lower.

Same reaction - he'd rediscovered the spell _Severus Leviosa_.

After that, time seemed to become more elastic and Lucius allowed himself to be lost in it from moment to moment. Spit and fingers, the old dormitory standby of furtive boys, came into play and when Lucius pushed himself up, covered Severus with his body and _took_ him…

The world blew apart. 

He took Sev and Sev took him, impaled like a butterfly on a mounting pin. Caught in the rhythm that Lucius forced, driving into his body, pulling from him with merciless strokes of his hand, and Lucius had never seen anything he could happily die looking at but this oh this lover of his!

_"Aimé mon aimé… ma seulement… ah! Si! Prenez-moi profondément… Je t'aime mon adoré!"_

Each word pulled from him, poured in Severus' ear with every panting breath that clawed out of him and Sev was so hard - hard like iron before it melts, forging something out of them both thrusts like hammer blows and Severus moving under him, around him, all heat and black and white.

"Lucius God yes please fuck yes…!" as Lucius felt Sev's body stutter and buck, muscles thrumming and they were both gone. Lucius lost in a rush of light and dark, physical pleasure and a deep anguish that left him decimated and lost.

When the world came back to him, he was in Sev's arms, cradled against his chest as Severus kissed tears from his face. 

Lucius couldn't move. Couldn't speak. He did not howl, but tears like droplets of molten iron slipped one by one from his eyes. He wanted to run - from what or to what he could not say even to himself - but all he did was tremble in Sev's embrace. 

"Tell me," Severus whispered. 

~

TBC


	5. Algolagnia: Chapter 5

Dear Readers;

Thank you for all the feedback on the previous chapter. I am so happy that you are all into this angsty tale. 

I wanted to do my best to keep both men in character – or at least my interpretation of it. It's actually pretty fascinating to get inside their heads, trying to figure out what made them who they are. It's been enjoyable to explore that. 

Here is the next bit, which as usual, just showed up on its own.

Please let me know what you think! :)

Sincerely,

Chaos

~

Algolagnia

Chapter 5

"The inner censor of the mind of the true believer completes the work of the public censor; his self-discipline is as tyrannical as the obedience imposed by the regime; he terrorizes his own conscience into submission; he carries his private Iron Curtain inside his skull, to protect his illusions against the intrusion of reality."

- Arthur Koelster

~

"Tell me."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know."

But on some level, he did.

~

Food came and went, but it was ashes in Lucius' mouth and lead in his stomach. Severus had scarcely more appetite and Lucius tried to focus on that rather than the gnawing in the back of his own mind.

Severus would not let him. 

"Tell me. If you think you cannot tell me then speak of something else."

They lay in bed once more, the dim comforting glow of candles turning the room to shades of black and gold. Lucius knew that he should get his clothing on and go. Go back to the certainly he had before this morning, go back to…

But Severus, he could not leave Severus in his isolation, not when that isolation was eating him alive.

"I don't want to speak, Severus. I want to listen."

"To what?" 

"Evan," Lucius curled around Severus from behind, wrapping an arm around his waist. "I want to hear about Evan."

How close had he just come to saying  'need' instead of want?

Severus was quiet for so long that Lucius pushed himself up on one elbow to see if he had gone to sleep. Instead, Severus' eyes were open, seeing not the dark paneling of the room, but the past. Lucius kept his peace, the feeling of blessed control returning, welcomed like rain in the desert. 

"I don't know where to begin." Severus fell silent again.

"With the first thing that comes to mind." Yes, Lucius could feel the uncertainty and conflict inside the other man and began to carefully lay it bare. 

"I did not want to love him. To care for him as much as I did." The sentences were jerky, splintered things. Not so much spoken as expelled. "I knew – we both knew – what awaited us after graduation. Our parents had already posted the marriage bonds. Every time we were home, some 'friend' with a freshly nubile daughter came to visit."

Evan and Severus had spurned arranged matches made by their parents. Though not bound by law, arranged marriages were part of custom in the oldest pureblood lines – there was no legal way to force the young men to comply, other than disinheritance. It had been a terrible scandal at the time. 

"When you and Narcissa left, I went home. There was nobody there other than the house elves and I was just… alone. Evan came by, I don't know how much later. A few weeks, maybe a month. He didn't put the pieces back together, but he kept me from completely falling apart."

Lucius felt a deep pang of guilt. Sev had been fourteen, in love with all the intensity that age could devote and suddenly ripped away from his constant. Evan had been there at the moment of opportunity, picking up Severus with all the ease of someone picking up a discarded, hurt and grieving pet. 

How very Slytherin of the boy – Lucius would be proud, were it under different circumstances. Severus had never been just a pet.

"I tried not to want him. Tried not to want anybody." Severus fell silent again. "He came to me one night, crawled right in beside me. Let me wake up with him there. Evan didn't kiss the way that you did. Didn't touch or breathe or move the way you did. That was good, to me, because I could not pretend that he was you. He didn't try to be you."

It made Lucius feel better to know how deeply Sev had been hurt, to know that he had grieved. It was good to know that his lover had not simply ricocheted into someone's arms, seeking to obliterate sorrow with sex. It was horrible to know, because of the few things that Lucius held dear and sacred, Severus had been one – and Lucius had broken his heart.

Not intentionally, no – but somehow Lucius felt that was worse. 

"When I saw you again, that day outside the Coffin House, when you kissed me," Sev whispered, "when you touched me – fuck. It was agony, but I wanted the agony and I wanted you. I didn't care if I bled to death."

It had been violent. Lucius shivered as he listened. Their kisses had been almost brutal, anger at leaving and anger at having been left fueling a darkly passionate, vicious fuck. Sev had bled, both of them had, by the time it was over and the bed in the cheap bundle-bin sagged on broken slats. 

"Evan knew. How I don't know, but he knew. He cried, but he was furious with me, with you, but most of all with what we had done to each other – the bites, the bruises. He asked me how I could think so little of myself, to let myself be used, marked up, and cast aside like a Horizonte Alley boywhore." The smooth voice was jagged, cut by emotions sharp enough to cut to bone. "I hit him. He kissed me. He didn't stop kissing me. He loved you, too, you see, but hated the fact that you took me from him. Evan thought that you stole me. He loved me and I never knew."

Oh, how that knife could twist! Yes, Lucius had stolen Sev – simply by virtue of being first. Evan was pretty - porcelain skin, blonde wavy hair that Gilderoy Locktwit would cut off his left ball for, eyes the shade of warm ocean water – but ultimately, Lucius had been able to handily seduce Severus when Evan was still trying to figure out whether he preferred his left hand or his right.

For nearly a year and a half, Lucius would steal time to be with Severus. Meeting him in Hogsmeade, avoiding the Three Broomsticks and lodging for a half-a-day at the Serpent and Staff – fucking each other's brains out. 

"Evan never asked me not to see you, not to fuck you. Back at school, when things were unbearable, he was there, plotting with me – usually in detention with me, too. After… that night," a shiver wracked Sev's body and Lucius could feel the skin break out in gooseflesh. It had something to do with Potter and Black, but beyond that, Severus would never say. "I woke up in the infirmary and everyone was running around like headless chickens over the God's-Gift Gryffindors, Evan was there. Not even my parents showed up, but Evan would not leave me."

Lucius had been on business for his father, returning home to a pile of letters in Evan's hand, begging him to come to the school, to find out what happened to Sev, because Sev wouldn't tell. 

"If we love him, if we can make him talk, it will be better for him. Damn Dumbledore! Lucius, the old bastard said something to him and now he won't talk about it!"

The next letter had been begging. "Please, leave him to me. If you really don't care any more than his parents, please don't come around him anymore. He needs you, and you're not here!"

The third; "He won't be able to go to Hogsmeade for some time. It's more for his protection than anything else. It's open warfare around here because the fucking Gryffs did this to him and aren't being punished at all. Potter is free as a bird and fucking Black is on restriction rather than being expelled. Lupin had something to do with it, because Sev won't get anywhere near him. The Gryffs are putting it all on Sev when it was Sev who was in the infirmary for a week!"

That had been it. Lucius had no access to Severus, nor did Severus have a way to get to Lucius. Evan and Severus became each other's beloved, as well as lovers.

When Lucius ratcheted up his courage and owled Sev about his plans for the summer, the response hit him like a kick to the balls. Severus was not going back to the isolation of his ancestral holding. Severus and Evan were going to Santorini and Mykonos. They'd send postcards.

Jealousy nearly ate Lucius alive.

The pictures and postcards fueled the fire and Lucius took his wrath to Horizonte Alley, finding sunny-blond and ink-tressed boys upon which to exorcise his demons. The whoremasters took his gold and asked no questions, tossing their merchandise to him with a grin and a leer. With the black-haired ones, Lucius ended it at the first true howl of agony. With the blonds…

"You were so distant in your letters, I thought that you had… moved on. That 'Cissa had filled up the part of you that was mine. By then, I loved him. I don't know when it happened, but it did, and I never wanted it to stop." Even now, there was longing in that voice. "Then we were in disgrace, and there you were, riding to the rescue. You stood up for us, and Even nearly choked to death when he admitted that he was wrong about you."

Lucius fought the urge to squirm. At the start of seventh year, it was customary for parents to announce the matches that would be formalized and consummated after graduation. In the old families, even if one was to be going on to university, it would be as a married student. Severus and Evan balked – much to the relief on one prospective bride and to the everlasting fury of another. 

Disowned, dispossessed, they were living in a room over the Fiddler's Bitch on Knockturn Alley – paid for out of the allowances of Charlie Wilkes and  Jean-Paul LeStrange. At the mercy of angry and powerful parents, the two boys had been denied access to trust funds set up for their future benefit by long-dead relatives. While living relatives could and did revoke their trusts, these others were in a grey area. Lucius had applied a lot of pressure and one very aggressive solicitor to get them and their funds loose of some very blatantly grasping relatives. 

The young men were stunned. They were also surpassingly, completely thankful. 

Just as Lucius knew they would be. 

A hero's welcome would be a poor way to describe their gratitude. Lucius had been boneless for days afterward. 

Then came graduation, and freedom. 

Lucius worked at the Ministry, rising in the ranks on his own ruthlessness and his father's connections. Severus and Evan worked for Gringotts in the research caverns. Jean-Paul married a stunning Durmstrang graduate from Belarus. Charlie was training as an analyst in the Department of Mysteries. Avery was still a rank little coward, a bootlicker in the Department of Apparition. 

Those days were golden in Lucius' mind, as thick and sweet as honey in his memory. 

"I never wanted it to end. I had heaven. I was loved. I had people to love. I had work that I enjoyed. I had a cause, a purpose and something to believe in and for which I could strive." The hitch in the breathing, the silent, gasped sobs. "And in a night, all in the space of one… bloody… night…"

_Red slitted eyes, a face that Lucius once thought held all the wisdom that cowards were afraid to speak._

_"Lucius, there you are, the very man I need. I requirethe use of  your judgement and keen mind  in a matter of some importance to us."_

_"Yes, my Lord? How may I serve?" _

_Pride, o, such pride to be asked for his counsel by their Lord. _

_"I need two of our best and brightest to undertake an errand for me, to retrieve an artifact being hidden by the Aurors at a cottage in Taff Fechan. Whom of your bright young charges could you recommend to me? They must be our very best, Lucius. There is some degree of danger involved, and I require absolute discretion."_

Lucius bowed his head, burying his face in Severus' hair, weeping with him, and for him, and also for himself. Oh, molten iron did not begin to describe the searing, howling pain building up inside of him. Lucius thought that he would rather have Cruciatus than this, he prayed for a muttered 'crucio' so that this pain - the one that he thought to heal Sev of, but had instead embedded in himself – would cease to be important. Give Lucius the freedom to be lost in the white-hot madness of the curse and he would scream smiling.

Unbidden, the words seeping onto his tongue like some poisonous miasma, burning and sickening, "Severus… I have… something… I… have to… tell you."

~

TBC


	6. Algolagnia: Chapter 6

Hello, Readers!

Here is the next bit of the story. Think of this chapter as 'Deconstructing Lucius.'

I hope that you will enjoy and do let me know what you think.

Sincerely,

Chaos

~

Algolagnia

Chapter 6

~

Implosion: the act of bringing to or as if to a center. 

Integration: coordination of mental processes into a normal effective personality or with the individual's environment

~

Lucius was wrapped in blankets, with Severus curled around him in the twilight of the bedroom.

The pallor, sweats and tremors had deeply alarmed Sev, who had immediately poured a whacking big cup of something down Lucius' throat. Whatever was in that potion, it was just wicked – every muscle in Lucius' body felt like sun-melted taffy and there was a low hum that seemed to have settled in the back of his skull. 

Now if he could just get his damned eyes to stop leaking, he'd be fine. 

If he could close his eyes and never open them again in this life; that might be better.

So strange to desire death, the oblivion that most would dare anything to avoid. If anyone loved life and the pleasures of the flesh, it was Lucius. 

Had Severus felt like this once? Had he taken wavering, drugged steps into the kitchen, and found the little silver knife? What had he thought as he looked at it in his hand? Had he tested the blade, smiling as it bit into his flesh? Severus, ever fastidious, would not have wanted anyone to clean up after him – so he chose the bathroom with its utilitarian white tile and deep tub for his self-exsanguination. 

"Did it hurt?" he asked.

Severus hesitated, as if to figure out what part of his life Lucius was inquiring about. "To what are you referring?"

"When you cut your arm open. Did it hurt very much?" Ooh. Bad. Whatever was in that cup was kicking his metaphorical arse.

"Not so much, I thought, as living."

Lucius closed his eyes. Poor Severus. Look what he had done to his beloved. "What was it like? Tell me about it."

Silence. 

"Please?" How often did a Malfoy say 'please' for anything? Please, stick a knife in me. Please, give the pain I gave to you back to me. 

"I woke. Alone. That potion you gave me, I had been using it for a while. I had developed a tolerance." 

"Using it? For insomnia?"

"Yes."

Lucius digested this in silence. Insomnia. A physical manifestation of a psychological disturbance.

"I was thirsty. You'd taken my wand and I went into the kitchen for some water. The knife – I had been using it earlier. It was on the drain board of the sink." Severus paused, took an unsteady breath, "I picked it up, ran my thumb up the blade and watched my blood drip into the sink. It felt… right to do that."

So well, he knew – Severus had indeed tested the blade. "To cut yourself?"

"Yes. I stood there for a long time, I think. The bleeding would stop. I would make another cut, and let more out. I… don't remember what decided me." He stopped, breathing ragged. 

Lucius felt as if he were emptying out, everything was flowing out of him. Hollow and empty, the essence that held him together was flowing away like the deep crimson of Sev's blood on the white porcelain.

"Go on, please." Please tell me. Please let me know what to expect. Please…

"I thought, maybe, if I could just let enough blood out, I could feel… something. Anything but like something in the middle of me was swallowing the rest of me whole." Severus' voice was low and desperately steady. "I ran the water in the bath and got in, it was warm. I put the knife at the bend of my elbow and pushed the tip of the blade in. I was so… drugged, insane, whatever that I thought I saw Evan yelling at me. I asked… I asked him to wait for me, that this wouldn't take long. I told him that I was sorry."

Tears took Lucius' sight as Severus tightened around him. Such pain between them that it felt incandescent – like Severus' words would immolate him so thoroughly that not even ashes would be left. 

"Please, Severus, give me the rest." Please, I need to know. Please help me. Please, I'm afraid…

"I cut, down through my arm from elbow to wrist. I could see muscle, tendon, all the way to bone and then the blood came out and I was happy. I was cold, and sank down in the water, but couldn't stop sinking until I was under… and the blood, Lucius, I watched the… my blood color the water and I couldn't move…" Severus was shivering now, reliving those moments. Could he see the blood as it tinged the water pink and then a bright, arterial ruby red? "Then everything was… gone. I was… I don't know… I tried to go somewhere and I couldn't. I was pulled… back? I woke up here, tied to a bed and having Hemo-Boost poured down my throat. Some Death Eater. Couldn't even kill myself right…"

Severus' voice was lost in tears and Lucius had no words to comfort him. He had only the memories that seared him, and the final step to make.

_"Charles, Evan, come. I have an errand for you to run for me."_

_Severus looked up from the book bound in human skin balanced on his knees as Voldemort – Lucius behind him - swept into the laboratory. Charles and Evan were bitching happily at each other over some scroll in a variant of Greek and occasionally pulling Severus into the argument just for fun. The three young men were the most brilliant academics of the inner circle and this would be well within their purview._

_"The Aurors have an artifact that we must obtain, an object of ancient and astonishing power that they intend to hide in the British Museum." The lipless mouth lengthened in mimicry of a smile. "The cowards would take the Cauldron of Cerridwen and display it to Muggles! The fools. Come the day, my boys, and we will take back all of our heritage they would hold in that citadel and return it to those of the blood and the will to use them!"_

Oh, didn't that just get them chomping at the bit! Severus had come close to begging to be allowed to go. The Cauldron of Cerridwen was the close to being the Holy Grail of potions masters – a position that the young man had newly attained. Severus was the youngest to rise to that exalted rank in more than a four hundred years.

_"No, my dear child, I have some research that I would have you conduct personally. I know your keen mind, Severus, and will give the Cauldron to you myself, once it is in hand." The thin white arm looped itself possessively across Severus' shoulders. "Come, the writings I have… acquired on the Cauldron of Cerridwen are extensive. I have no doubt you will find them useful."_

_It was the last time Lucius had seen them all together - the day that what Lucius had come to call The Shattering had begun. The Shattering would end the day that the last of his charges were sentenced to Azkaban, never to be free again on this side of the grave._

Memory was crystal clear; Evan with his wavy blond hair pulled back, the cowl of his robes around his shoulders. Tall and thin Charles, his features sharp and watchful, his brown hair perpetually mussed and murky green eyes always shadowed. He tried to imagine them as Severus said he had seen them – brutalized instead of the blankness that the Avada Kedrava gave its victims.

Just one minute.

"Severus – Evan and Charles, you said they were… marked?" 

There was a long silence. "Lucius, however they died, it wasn't from an Avada. They were… Lucius, they were mauled. Evan had been bled white and I saw ligature marks on Charles' wrists and neck.  I know how those marks are made. I have made them on others myself." Severus' voice shook, "The did not die by Avada Kedrava, someone tortured them to death. I think they banished the bodies as much as a psychological weapon as to cover the fact that the kills were not… clean."

Blood sport was not sport to Severus – not as it was to the inner circle. Severus never killed without necessity, when information was required it was gotten by effective methods void of the excesses taken by many. He would simply sniff in disdain and say that he'd prefer to expend his energies on worthier adversaries than a gang-raped  Muggle child. It did not endear him to many, and that Evan and Charles shared his opinion caused some comment. Lucius defended them – academics were different, their only ambition was knowledge.

Severus did enjoy his toys, though – he tended them well, keeping them alive and in good condition to play with for a very long time. When he was bored, he'd simply Obliviate them and dump them nude on some country road. They usually turned up in Muggle tabloids talking about being abducted by space aliens. Severus collected the articles, thinking it great sport. Evan and Charles eventually joined him in it, adding their own toys, and soon the walls of their lair and laboratory were covered with the damned Muggle papers.

But…

_"Evan and Charles are dead. The Aurors laid us a trap, and now two of our best and most promising young men are no more." The circle – less three, now that Severus was in interrogation – hissed like a nest of serpents at their Lord's words. "They were ambushed, killed by Avada Kedrava when they would not surrender. They died for our cause, my friends. Our blood has been shed – now go and drown them all in our revenge!"_

_Death Eaters began Apparating – hunting blood to spill. The week was actually called Reaper's Walk in the history books, with the Death Eaters taking two hundred lives to honor Evan and Charles. Many were convinced that Severus would be the next to be honored so, choosing to follow his lover in death._

_"Lucius."_

_"My Lord?"_

_"I have another task for you, my most trusted one."_

_"How may I serve my Lord?" _

_"Go to the Ministry, and wait. I fear that Severus could break under questioning. Wait for him to be released, and if you think at any time that he has been turned…"_

Lucius sobbed. He hadn't been able to do it. Not if Severus had foresworn his Mark on the steps of the Ministry could he have done it.

He would tell Severus everything. Severus would kill him. It would be over.

"The Lord came to me… he asked…" Every word uttered was racked up from Lucius' being like a rotten corpse from charnel pit. 

Deconstruction - the opposite of construction. Lucius was dismantling himself word by word. He had failed so dismally to protect his charges, he was bathed in their blood and nothing could ever wash it away. Life after life that he had been given responsibility for; blown out one by one like a row of candles. 

"What happened, it was my fault. I killed them." Eyes clenched shut, it all came ripping out of him in burst of words broken by sobs – he felt as if he'd been flayed and gutted. "I killed them Severus, as if I'd spoken the Avada myself, I…"

The deconstruction ended. He was nothing more than bones.

Silence. Only the movement of Severus' chest against his back let him know that the other man was still breathing.  The minutes stretched into agony for Lucius – was this how his some of his ancestors had felt as they waited for the axe to part them from their lives? Lucius waited, willing the tears to stop, wanting to meet death like a man.

Then, softly, the two words that broke him, "I know."

~


	7. Algolagnia: Chapter 7

Dear Readers;

Thank you for your feedback and reviews, they mean a great deal to me. 

There remains little more to this tale, but I hope that you will see it through.

As always, please let me know what you think.

Sincerely,

Chaos

Algolagnia

Chapter 7

~

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

- Mahatma Ghandi

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; **  
**the naive forgive and forget; **  
**the wise forgive but do not forget.

- Thomas Szasz

~

Time died.

Eventually he exhausted his will to do violence to himself, and then to commit violence upon Severus. 

He knew? He knew and had the nerve to let Lucius… live?

Lucius wondered. 

The last night of his 'life,' which was surely over even though he still breathed, he had been restless. The heat, the insomnia, the sense of something lost – had Lucius been the pilgrim gone to seek a cure at some sacred source? Instead of thinking to cure Severus, had Severus instead drained him of some stealthy poison?

Certainty was gone. Will was gone. The past he thought he knew was not the past that actually was. He huddled under the blankets, on some level fearful that the floor would dissolve under his feet and plummet him into some amorphous void. 

The Mark burned. 

Shiver. Sweat. Nausea tying his viscera into knots.

"Surely you can see that he's ill?"

"Shite, Severus, what's happened to him?"

"I don't know, but I have reason to believe it was a slow-acting poison – possibly fed to him over months. It dissipates before it's sweated out. He's too weak right now for me to bleed for a sample, nor has it had enough time to be present in his hair or fingernails."

A long pause. 

"Deliberate then?"

"Obviously, yes."

"Not Narcissa?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

"Veritaserum."

"One of… us?"

Severus hesitated. It was enough.

"I will relay this to our Lord. Severus, if anyone can get him through this, it will be you. There will be some… questions for the others to answer. Care well for him."

"I always have."

Potions came and Lucius drank them down. He fed and bathed at Severus' direction, too numb to object, or even speak at all. Sometimes he stared into space, other times he wept until he had a cranium-shattering headache. Then there were the times when he would clutch Severus to him or lie quiescent in his arms – listening to the heart beat drumming out 'stillherestillherestillhere.' It was often the only way that he could sleep.

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why did you let me live, if you knew?"

"I have my reasons."

"Tell me."

"I don't spoon-feed my students and I won't spoon-feed you. Think of some other questions to ask me."

Questions.

Why would the Lord say that Evan and Charles had died by Avada rather than give them the truth? They had operatives – without the Mark, of course – in every part of the Ministry; the information should have been there. Why the…

Lie?

Yes. Lie. There was nothing else to call it. 

Why did a person lie? 

All of Lucius' study gave him the answer: Unless they had a psychological condition that induced chronic lying, a person would lie for only two reasons.

The first reason was to protect. Whether one's life, one's social standing, one's interests – it was all the same. Severus had just protected him with two lies and one not-quite lie to Pettigrew. Though, metaphorically speaking, Severus might have been very accurate, indeed.

The second reason was to gain and hold something wanted - advantage, leverage, money, power or prestige.

But what would Voldemort have to protect? What could he gain by misleading his followers?

"Something he did not think that he had firmly in grasp." Lucius murmured to himself. "Something that…"

Lucius had concentrated his efforts of learning the ways of mind and body, using one to influence the other. Severus, Evan and Charles had concentrated on Alchemy, Spellworking and Enchantments – often using them in synthesis with stunning results. But of all of them, Severus' specialty was among the most rare. There were few who could manage the intricacies of formulation, few who had the patience for research and elaborate processes. Indeed, Severus' research and theories were of great interest to the Dark Lord.

From the age of eleven and even before, Severus' ambition had never been for anything but knowledge, for to Severus knowledge was power – and Severus wore it well. As Lucius well knew, true power had no need to swagger and strut, it generated its own heady atmosphere - and with all the banned teachings available to them, the three young academics often seemed like the most beautiful of the Christians fallen angels.

Voldemort inspired awe and fear, but Severus, Evan and Charles gained respect – even when they were still young enough to revel in the forbidden like puppies. 

No, something had changed in that year. Lucius turned his mind back on that time, studying his memories with the sharp skill of a dissecting blade. 

They wore it well, the respect of others, the mastery of their young selves was beginning to show. It was not a strutting confidence, but one that fit them like skin-tight leather gloves. Ability needed no ornament, and that confidence came from ability.

It still gave way to enthusiasm, though, such as over that Cauldron. 

"Played like a bloody harp." Lucius sat up suddenly enough that Severus' hand slapped to his wand in reflex.

"Here's a question for you. What did he feel he did not have, and what was he protecting?"

Severus was quiet, then… "Who was the man who now is called Lord Voldemort?"

Lucius blinked. What very odd phrasing. "Tom Riddle. He took a use name in the old tradition of a wizard never revealing his true name."

"Who was Tom Riddle?"

"He was a Slytherin, the Heir of Salazar – matrilineal."

"Yes, a Marvolo. But who was his father? Tom Riddle – the name on the gravestone – was a Muggle."

That subject – that name - did not come up within Voldemort's hearing. Not even Lucius' father had spoken of it, and he had been at school with the man. 

Still, it was odd for a Mu- for a half-breed to work so insistently for the purity of the race. One thing he seemed to want more than anything else was for wizarding kind to be refined to its purest state. The Mudbloods and Squibs would have their place firmly under the heel of their betters, but the ever-breeding Muggles would be culled like the brute beasts they were.

Power. Wealth. Fear. These things Voldemort had already and in fair abundance. 

Severus whispered in Lucius' ear, his lips brushing against the lobe, "The one thing he could surround himself with, but never possess. Those who had it would do his bidding, but never could he have what was theirs. It was not enough that he had us as his creatures, that we joined in everything he decreed – he desired with all his being the one thing that his power could not deliver to him."

The answer came immediately and Lucius rejected it. "No. Not possible."

"My research, the research Evan, Charles and I did – did you ever wonder why none of it ever reached the inner circle?"

"What?" 

"None of it. The glorious past was going to stay the province of a chosen few, by everything we could tell. Our research into blood rites, immortality, dark magics, all seemed to be to the benefit, yes – but the benefit of one." Severus' arms tightened, the whisper intense as a shout, "More than power, more than the world under his boot heel, and more than immortality, he wanted to purge forever the taint of his Muggle father from his veins. He wanted what we possessed from birth – pure wizarding blood."

Lucius took this in silently. Sev was wrong; he had to be.

The mattress shifted as Severus rolled out of the bed, crossing to the mantle of the bedroom fireplace. Laying his hand on one of the stones, he muttered something that Lucius did not catch. One of the stones turned, drawing in and up to reveal a small space stuffed with notebooks and artifacts. Severus drew one out muttered the closing spell and brought the book to Lucius.

"Read. This is the last of the research that Evan, Charles and I did together. We were getting very close to a solution."

Lucius took the book from Severus' hand and sat up. Opening the first page, he began to read.

It was fascinating. The three little Slytherins he knew had easily become the greatest minds of their generation. Lucius knew masterwork when he saw it, and though he preferred the study of the mind, he knew dark magic the way his tongue knew the roof of his mouth. This was nothing short of amazing.

Severus watched him from his pillow, dozing occasionally. The book was an inch thick, every page covered with Severus' neat script, Evan's illustrations and Charles' intricate spells that kept the ink from fading, the paper from decay – and stopped any attempt to tamper with the work. 

Twenty pages in, Lucius almost threw the book across the room. 

Another fifteen pages in and he did, only to _accio_ it back to his hand.

On page seventy-three, he set the book down and covered his face with his hands, trying to stop his mind from reaching the conclusion that was now inescapable.

"He was losing his grip, Lucius. Those who have nothing to lose are the deadliest enemies, but those who have everything to lose will fight in the teeth of overwhelming odds to keep it. The backlash was building. Do you remember that pretty little squib in Avebury? The one with the Muggle boyfriend?" 

Lucius had to think for a moment. "Yes, I remember. A squib of the Prinn family – pretty, as you said."

Sixteen, brunette, and lustily screwing her Muggle stud in the backseat of a car. She'd been sport for the lot of them while her boyfriend was made to watch.

"What did she have to do with us? Anything?" 

Lucius did not see where this was leading. "No. How could she? She was a squib."

"Her boyfriend? The one we hunted down on brooms after Mulciber cruciated the girl to death? Had he anything to do with us?"

"No."

"With dark magic?"

"No."

"With the cause we all supported, that we worked for and strove to bring into being?"

"The squib would have made a nice concubine, but the Muggle was of no import and the girl's death turned the Prinn boy away from us." The boy had been Slytherin, but terribly fond of his older squib sister. He was now an Auror, and one of the most ruthless in the ranks.

"What did John and Charity Lightfoot's infant girl have to do with us? They were Muggles, but did you know that the girl's name was written in Hogwart's book? Her name was Paige Catherine, and she was born on April tenth, nineteen-seventy-nine."

Lucius shook his head.

"Cicero Dunwell? Aged ten, pureblood family. Throat cut and left to bleed to death?" Severus asked. "What about Reverend William Hopgood, he and his family put under Imperius and required to stand in the inferno as their house was torched?"

"I don't…" 

"Listen to me, Lucius. We all trusted that there was some great plan, some guiding principle that would free our kind from the prison of secrecy and invisibility. We all remember the names of those killed in the persecutions, the history the Ministry and Muggle-coddlers refuse to teach." Severus' voice was intense, his gaze almost feverish. "Think, man! What ground did we gain? What goal was in sight when we did those things? There was none! We were brought aboard a grand ship with no rudder other than some sadistic bastards delusions of revenge and his desire to not only command purebloods, but to be a pureblood – and everything we – his pet pureblood academics – studied was a means to that end!"

Lucius was so cold that there might have been chunks of ice floating in his veins. "I'm not going to listen to this, Severus. No, you can't be saying…"

"I am saying that we did not sign up to cater to the sadistic jollies of some sick-minded bastard half-breed!" The bellow echoed around the bedroom. "Volde – no – _Riddle_ was impatient, thought that we were delaying giving him what he wanted. At the same time, Rookwood, Dolohov and Travers were getting uppity. Riddle had access to all our research; he thought he understood it. Read the last page, Lucius."

"No." Lucius folded his hands into his armpits, squeezed his eyes shut. He now knew what he did not want to know; he wanted to un-know it. 

"No? Then I will tell you. Voldemort came to you because you were the leader of our little faction. He appealed to you instead of to the others because he knew that you would give him what he wanted - and that it would not look like he had taken to murdering his faithful."

The mattress shifted as Severus moved closer.

"Stop."

"Who were the best and brightest? Who was the one you tried so hard not to regard with jealousy? Who was the one that you always wanted to protect and keep for your own?"

Closer. That voice so low and desperate.

"Please stop."

"No. He needed two beautiful martyrs. You gave him Evan and Charles, but more than that, you gave him yourself."

"Please…"

The heat of Severus' skin next to his, the brush of his breath against his neck.

"He used to watch us, and it took me a long time to place what I felt from him when you touched me – jealousy. The same look you tried to hide when you looked at Evan – after all, how could you wish us harm, you were our mentor, our guide."

"Please…" 

"You don't want to hear any more, but you will hear it, my love – all of it." Another shift and Severus' full weight came down on Lucius, sitting astride him. "We talked about our doubts amongst ourselves, but it was Charles who actually did something. He went to Dumbledore – something Evan and I rejected out of hand – and told him everything. All of it."

_All…?_ Lucius tried to buck Severus off of him. 

"No, you are going to get the whole bloody thing, Lucius, and all the proof I have. There was no Cauldron of Cerridwen. There were Aurors in wait, one who while he never took the mark, was one of us. The other was a creature of Crouch and more like his partner than a champion of the light. They tortured Charles to death first – but could not extract the truth from him." 

"Pritchard and Alden?"

"My questioning at their hands was unplanned. It was supposed to be a fight where I killed the true Auror and died fighting the other. When that did not happen, you were dispatched with very specific orders, were you not?"

Severus' hands closed hard on Lucius' wrists. 

"No more… Severus…"

"It's all so twisted, Lucius. So… sordid. Riddle wanted the last bit of research that would make him a pureblood. He wanted you. He was jealous of those who loved anything other than him. You loved me, but were jealous of Evan even as much as you loved him."

Lucius shook his head, opened his eyes, pleading in silence for Severus to stop.

"I'll read you the last page. I don't need the book; I see the words in my dreams. 'And he is to be sacrificed must be drained by that which gives him life. He must be emptied of that for which we breathe. Only when the vessel is hollow may it be filled with anew.' In his obsession with pure blood," Severus' head was bowed, but hot droplets of tears began to fall on Lucius' chest, "Riddle got it wrong. He tortured and bled Evan to death in an attempt to take over his body. He could not comprehend that it was the soul that had to be gone for the living body to be empty. There was no Avada Kedrava."

Lucius screamed. His doing. His! He threw his charges, the ones given to him to be responsible for…!

Severus, held on, held him down until Lucius lay exhausted and weeping. 

"Dumbledore came looking for me once he learned what happened to Evan and Charles, he wanted to try and convince me to trust him. Instead he pulled me out of a tub of bloody water, brought me here and nursed me back to health – and something approaching sanity. He gave me proof, never tried to use the fact that I owed him a lifedebt to insure my loyalty, and sent me back in as a spy."

_Oh, Sev, no…_ The last bit of Lucius that stood as a breakwater against this dread tide, crumbled.

"I found the Auror, used methods that Albus did not like to get the evidence that I needed, and worked backwards from there. It took me years to forgive you. I came within a hair of killing you, Lucius."

"Why didn't you?" It would have saved him so many long nights. 

"Do you remember that you once told me that we lie most ably and well when we lie to ourselves?"

"Yes. Yes I do." _What have you done? What have I done? __Oh, Severus, mon seulement…_

Lucius went limp, empty even of tears, of thought. 

"Manipulation was Riddle's only true art, his only real brilliance. He used your own mind against you, Lucius, as he did against us all." Severus bent down, brushing Lucius' lips with his. "I forgive you."

The shattering ended, and all was blessed, sacred silence.

~

Coda and Epilogue to follow.

~


	8. Algolagnia: Chapter 8

Algolagnia

Chapter 8

~

Author's note: Albus Dumbledore channeled for your pleasure by Vardya.

~

"Really, Severus, while I can't complain about your results, I have to wonder about your methods. Couldn't you have foreseen that this would have a profound effect on him?" 

"I think that this was the only way to reach him. Lucius surrounded himself so capably with lies, and insulated himself with the knowledge that his studies granted him. You forget, sir, that he attempted to do the same to me." 

"Exactly, Severus. I can appreciate your feelings - but if he sees only black despair, he is not alive anywhere. Not to Voldemort and certainly not to us. How do we re-ignite the spark and find Lucius Malfoy again?"

"He has to remember himself for himself, Albus. We cannot remember for him. I knew him, as a younger lover knows an older, but I believe that he can be brought back."

"And have you a grand design, then? I would ask just one thing of you: a little gentleness, Severus. We are, after all, attempting to show him that there is a world outside of Voldemort and outside of treachery. He could be so valuable to us, and to himself, if he could only find himself again and use the finding well."

"No. Grand designs are not my _forte_. Headmaster, I do love him, I will protect him to my last breath, even from himself. If there was another way to have broken his walls, I would have, especially as it involved the breaking of mine in turn."

"Yes, I see; I see that you love him, and I think that that love may buoy him back. However, bear in mind that in your zeal to recreate you do not push too hard and topple him again and yourself behind him. And mind you this as well: I have loved you long and well, my son, and there is room for him. If you are uncertain then step slowly, and please ask if you feel I can assist in any way. I want you well, Severus, and him too. There is much that one such as Lucius could do with us, were he willing. I would do as much as I could to have him willing."

"As you will, Albus. I will be as careful with Lucius as you were with me, so long ago. You will hear from me if I have doubts - as usual."

"I have never doubted you, my boy. I am concerned for you often, as you very well know, but I have never doubted you. But be sure of yourself and know your strength, because we do not seek to destroy but to support, and to encourage those who work with us to do so at their very best. I will not have him think that he has traded one demon for another."

"He will not. Though at times you might think him one - he is single-minded when working on a subject. I... value... very much… your faith in me. Thank you."

"It is well-placed, dear boy. It is well-placed. I will anticipate working with both you and Lucius in the future. And now go, you have work to do."

"Good night, sir. Sleep well." 

"And you, Severus."

~

"But he will be well again, Severus?"  
  


"As well as I can make him, Narcissa."

~

HIGH MINISTRY OFFICIAL FOUND DEAD  
  


Walden Macnair, age 38, Director of the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, was found dead this morning in his office in the Department of Magical Creatures. It appears that the death is a suicide, with the deceased ingesting a plate of poisonous mushrooms….

~

Lucius slept, but his dreams consisted only of the past. 

When he woke, even after sleeping for ten hours, his mind was never rested. On one occasion, he thought that he saw Evan and Charles, but as they were not there when he was fully awake, he thought it might have been a waking dream. Even with knowing what was happening to him, he was powerless to stop it. The removal of one stone was causing everything to crumble. 

He could manage to navigate Severus' rooms for a short time before the rising panic would drive him back to the bed, leaving him shaking and sweating. Simply contemplating the door that would take him out of here was enough to reduce him to tears. Lucius found it galling that in all of his studies, the one mind he had skipped over having a good look at was his own. 

The fatal flaw was something he had studied very closely in his subjects. Being able to masquerade virtue as vice and vice as virtue was all a matter of presentation. How terrible to find such flaws in himself – pride, jealousy, even love used against himself and…

Damn it. 

He tried to summon anger at Severus for bringing him to this point, but he really couldn't. Not with his own part in events. 

All the events.

The past refused to stay in his sleeping hours, now it was trying to scratch its way out of memory and stand before him. 

Severus came in with a goblet in hand. 

"Lord, no. Not again?"  
  
"Unless you can eat something and keep it down."

Lucius grimaced. Mind-body connection. Bloody fucking hell. He _knew_ and still…!

Accepting the goblet, he drank it down and set it empty on the nightstand. "I'm always surprised at how good nutrient potions taste. Do you put something in it to calm the stomach, as well?"

Severus leaned on the bedpost. "They have to taste good, otherwise the people who need them on a regular basis would never drink them. I did put in something for the inflammation and to relax the stomach, yes."

It sounded as if his friend was speaking from personal experience. 

Lucius regarded the man, purple circles under his dark eyes, gone from slender to gaunt in the time that Lucius had been here. "You look like hell."

"You must be my advance guard, then." Severus snapped.

Sheer stroppy temper. Severus was a thorny one at best, but when he was not well rested he could make a nettle's sting seem a lover's kiss. 

"You're tired. Come lie down with me." Lucius patted the bed. He knew he was engaging in avoidance behavior, but that was fine with him. "Just for a while, you've not been sleeping well."

Severus hesitated.

"How are you going to keep an eye on me if you're not well rested? Oh, come now! If you haven't been in touch with Albus Dumbledore to tell him that Lucius Malfoy has cracked and is sleeping in your bed, I'll box your ears. I taught you better." Sighing, the black-haired man slipped off his shoes, but did not attempt to deny the quasi-accusation. While Severus was a man of considerable talents, he could not tell an outright untruth. "You don't expect to sleep in your shirt and trousers, do you?"

A black eyebrow arched, but the shirt and trousers and socks followed, hung or folded with meticulous care over the railing of the bed. "Why do I suspect an ulterior motive?"

Lucius made no attempt to deny it. "Because you know me so very well?"

No, no doubt that even falling-down tired, the dark-haired man was good to the eyes – and judging from the rise developing in his shorts Severus might not actually be that tired. 

"You are incorrigible." 

"Mm-hmm." Delicious. A feast for the senses. Smooth skin, slicked with salty sweat in the throes of passion. No finer music than the words and sounds that flowed from his tongue like a river of the finest velvet.

"Lucius, you've been… ill."

Lucius lifted the covers invitingly, "Then get into bed and stop jabbering at me. I need my rest."

With a look that might quell his students – but one that had no effect whatsoever on Lucius – Severus slid under the quilts. With his back to Lucius he lay his head on the pillow, the very image of determined virtue.

Oh, good. More fun that way.

Lucius slithered close, spooning himself around Severus' back.

"Lucius."

"Yes?" He could not resist a long, lingering kiss on the fourth vertebra.

"Sleep, remember?"

"Rest. Lying down. I did not actually specify sleep." 

Sleep later. Good, dreamless deep shagged -until-drowned–in-endorphins sleep. He slid one hand down Severus' side, relishing the gasp that told him Severus was still ticklish in certain spots.

What a delightful toy boy Sev had been! Lucius once alternated tickling with intense fellatio and got the boy's body so confused that Severus had come violently with Lucius mercilessly licking the backs of his young lover's knees.

_"Was that, 'Please don't! Stop!' Severus? Or was it, "Please don't stop!' Enunciate!"_

_"Ahh! Bastard! Ahhh! I… ohh… I'm... Uhnnn…!"_

"Lucius..."

"It will help you to sleep." He wrapped an arm over and began play with the other head with which Severus was losing the argument – and losing badly if his state of arousal was any indication. 

"I… don't need any help… stop that… with getting… to… tickle me and you will not only be a sick man but an injured one, Lucius!" Severus whipped over and pinned him to the bed and proceeded to kiss him until just enough blood remained in Lucius' head to minimally operate his brain.

Lips, tongues, teeth – who would think that something so common as mouths, so simple as kissing could send one skittering to the edge of release?  There wasn't enough of Severus touching him. Lucius wanted as much skin as possible on his and sought to rid his lover of his shorts - wrapping his fingers around and slowly stroking the flesh that seemed to nudge so eagerly at his hand. 

Severus moaned, dropping that wonderful, sinful mouth to Lucius' neck to bite and suck in time with his strokes.

"See? I don't think that you would be able to sleep when you're this worked up." Lucius congratulated himself on a complete sentence before he lost the ability to formulate rational thought. Severus was returning the favor – with interest. 

Those fingers were… so very talented. So knowing. After all, Lucius had taught him everything he knew about pleasure and it was so gratifying to find that his teaching had not gone unappreciated. 

"Keeper or Chaser?" Lucius murmured.

"Flip you for it." 

"You cannot be… hey!" Lucius found himself face down on the bed, contemplating this delightful aggression as Severus removed Lucius' pyjama bottoms. 

Warm, wet tongue traced his spine, moving inexorably down to where Severus was employing his hands to thoroughly massage, plunder and debauch Lucius' willing arse. Moaning into the pillow, Lucius arched his back, begging wordlessly for more. A whimper of unalloyed sexual bliss clawed its way from Lucius' throat as a spit-slicked finger breached him and made him endlessly – if incoherently - grateful to have been born male.

"Good?"

Slow massage inside of him. Heavy, roiling heat in his loins making him ache.

"Ohfuckyes." His hips rolling with each stroke, arching to meet, to take more.

"Turn your head, I want to see you. You're a fallen angel when you're like this – so beautiful, so debauched. I used to force myself to keep my eyes open when we fucked, just to see you like this, Lucius."

Ecstatic pleasure winding his spine tight and the need to thrust – the very feel of cotton against his sex inflaming his senses, and Severus' words blowing them into conflagration. Air like hot treacle, so heavy it was hard to breathe, hard to think of anything except Severus kissing his way back up his spine whispering more silken wickedness in Lucius' ear as he pressed into him so deep so good!

"Hard," the pleading whisper was a voice Lucius could scarcely recognize as his own. "Do it hard. Give me all of you."

Severus groaned, wrapping himself around Lucius, burying himself again and again as Lucius fought to move, to meet him, to be split apart and fucked to ragged bits. Lucius begged, demanded, swore revenge and begged again as Severus pounded into his body with enough passion to burn them both to ashes.

Writhing together, the intensity built until there was only the desperate need for completion.

"Fuck me love me kill me with it damn you I love you always love you come for me lose it for me fall to pieces for me Severus oh shit oh fuck come for me come with me do it ahh now now oh yes fucking yes...!"

Quick spastic jerks of Lucius' hand on his prick brought an orgasm that felt like an explosion of molten steel. Severus shuddered, thrusting as if both their lives depended on it and cried out hoarsely as he took his pleasure, then moaned against Lucius' neck as each aftershock wrung a little more from him. 

Lucius felt himself sinking into the bed as endorphins sluiced through his body. He could not move as Severus tucked and rolled them both onto their sides, lassitude on the tail of the endorphins. A few kisses and murmured endearments and Severus' breathing altered into that of sleep. Lucius was only seconds behind him.

~

_It was his study, but the whole thing has been twisted out of true somehow, lending the room a wrongness hard to define but inimical. Though the scene outside of the leaded glass windows was one of summer, the room was cold – freezing actually. Lucius got up from his chair, a glass of a good red wine in one hand, and went to the fireplace where a bonfire fit for Samhain was burning in the grate. _

_The cold was numbing his hands and feet, and no warming charm worked, though he could cast them all from memory. _

_"More fuel, I need more fuel." _

_Setting the wine on the mantel, he bent to the hod and began to toss more tinder into the maw of flames. No change for the warmer, but a tracing of frost was creeping around the edges of the windowpanes. Baffled, Lucius picked up his glass and tipped it up._

_And spit out a mouthful of salty, coppery red - coughing and spitting in disgust. _

_"Blood? I'll have elf-hide slippers for this!"_

_Throwing the glass into the fireplace, the flames seemed to hiss in satisfaction at this kindling – yet the room grew even colder. Frost muted the colors of summer to vague, sickly pastels and the shadows in the room seemed to move oddly in the dying light. _

_Perplexed, Lucius reached for another bit of tinder. Cool, heavy and smooth it came to his hand – so unlike wood that he had to look down and see…_

_Gleaming white bone. A fleshless and pristine femur dropped from his numb grip to clatter to the hearthstone._

_In the hod, there was no seasoned oak or fatty pine; but it was instead heaped with tibiae, ulnae, ribs and skulls. _

_Lucius stumbled back, suddenly dripping sweat in the brutal cold of the room, his guts knotting slickly._

_"What's going on here?" he breathed out white fog, the cold eating into him by the second. "What is hell is going on…"_

_"You won't be warm until we are."_

_Lucius pivoted on one heel and nearly choked on his own spit. In the darkness, populating every shadow, were faces he knew. Some he killed, some he had seen their lives ended, and some he never saw except as object lessons left for the Ministry to find. All of them were frozen blue - cold in layers of aquamarine and sapphire. _

_He knew them, and sought to tear his eyes away before he saw…_

_Cold arms around him, squeezing. Lips like ice on his cheek. A fond, loving smile as Evan whispered, "You won't be warm until we are, Lucius. Not until we're warm again will you be free of the cold."_

~

He awoke with a scream lunging up his throat and barely managed to throttle it down. 

Severus had moved away from him in sleep and did not stir from the grip of deep slumber.

Ideas, images, and memories tumbled through Lucius' mind a cyclonic speed. What he had done, he had done and done willingly. Now he would do this last thing, a paltry thing, but the only thing that Lucius felt he could do. Just one act that would never come close to balancing the scales – the only act left. 

Slipping out of bed, he pulled Severus' _robe de chambre_ from a hook on one of the bedposts and put it on. 

"Mmmf?" Severus stirred.

"Just going to shower. Right back." One last untruth. 

"Mmmf." Severus dropped back into sleep and Lucius breathed a sigh of heartfelt relief.

In the bath, he shut the door, and cursed the fact that here was no way to lock the damned thing. He started the water and removed the robe, using his fingernails and teeth to pick apart the stitching that joined the sash to the robe. Tying one end to the shower curtain rail, Lucius wished for a real rope – the silk could not make a proper hangman's knot. It would get the job done, but it would be a much slower death by asphyxiation rather than by having one's neck snapped and losing all function below the third vertebrae. 

Beggars could not be choosers, and he had meted out worse deaths himself.

Slipping his head in, he readied himself. It would take an enormous act of will to override the autonomic compulsion to struggle free of the noose and breathe. Why couldn't Severus have left a friendly drop somewhere? Even a simple sharp edge would make this easier by half.

Kneeling he leaned into the noose's embrace, let it constrict his airway. How often had he done this to some of his test subjects? He could surely manage it for himself – and without anybody to release the noose when he passed out from hypoxia, he would fall, the noose would tighten and that would be that. 

Silver-rimmed black spots slipped into his vision one by one, then in a blizzard that dimmed light and thought. There was a roaring in his ears. He felt his knees strike the floor. All was dark, and Lucius went gladly into it.

….

….

"Breathe, damn it!"

_No!_

Despite all his will, Lucius did breathe - sucking air into his lungs and expelling it in a howl of pure fury. Red rage replaced the darkness so eagerly sought and he lashed out at Severus. He was aware of nothing other than the desire to taste blood, to obliterate the care that was worse than Cruciatus, to make sure that Severus would…

The wet snap of breaking bone and breathless gasping slammed into Lucius' mind, blasting the red rage to tatters. Severus knelt on the floor beside the tub, face grey and eyes unseeing as he struggled to stay conscious. One arm was folded flat to his ribcage, as if trying to hold in the pain of broken ribs.

Lucius backed away, mind blank in horror. Sick and shaking, he fled to the one place he could think of as safe. 

~

It was unusual for someone so prompt as Severus to be late at all, much less late by this amount of time. Even if he hated meetings of the staff, Severus was always there.

Albus knocked briskly at the heavy oak door. "Severus?"

No answer. 

A more insistent knock brought the Potions Master's voice on the other side of the door, which stayed firmly shut. 

"Yes?" Short, guarded. 

"Severus? The staff meeting? Everyone is waiting." There was a long silence. "Severus?"

"Headmaster, I have a… situation." 

Oh, dear. Excessive formality. That was never a good sign with anyone, especially not with a Slytherin. 

"I see. A 'situation' that precludes your attendance in the meeting? Just what sort of 'situation' would that be?" Albus crossed his arms and spoke sternly to the door, thinking it an apt metaphor for a good many of his dealings with Severus Snape.

There was a long silence. "A… situation, Headmaster."

This was alarming – formality coupled with a lack of words simply did not happen to the razor-witted Severus.

"Severus – are you ill?" Severus had a tendency to push himself very hard and had a personality that lent itself to the obsessive. If he had wrecked his health, Albus would drag him to Poppy Pomfrey by the ears. 

"No. I… it is… my guest. He has reached a point of… crisis."

"Might I enquire as to the nature of this crisis? Shall I send for Madam Pomfrey?" No answer. "Severus," open this door." Silence as Albus counted to ten, then spoke in his steeliest tones, "Severus, you can open this door, or I will open this door."

After a moment's hesitation, the locks were thrown and the wardspells relaxed. Severus opened the door about four inches and peered out, blocking Albus' view into the room with his body. Dark circles graced Severus' eyes, he had lost weight and seemed to be holding himself very stiffly.

"Much better. Now, the nature of this crisis?"  
  


"You might remember the type of crisis – it precludes leaving him alone with things such as sharp objects and the like. Lucius has begun to… see, sir."

Albus felt a chill in his bones. " 'See,' Severus? What has Lucius begun to see that leads you to mistrust him in the presence of sharp objects? Are you in danger from him or is Lucius Malfoy in physical danger from himself?"

Severus took a breath, his face reflecting some inner turmoil. "If you will recall from my own… history; when clarity is attained and one cannot look at one's deeds though the fog of self deception, it can be…" He jerked his gaze away from Albus' and shrugged. "If you will recall, I tried to hang myself with the bedsheets." 

Severus never fidgeted, so any extraneous movement from him was usually an indicator of significant distress. Albus was now truly alarmed. "What has happened? Has he injured himself, or you? It would not surprise me at all if you were to hide it. Tell me, Severus."

"If you would... if you have no other urgent business..." A quick shift of the shoulders and flicker in the steady gaze. "I might poultice the bruises, if you could... sit with him. He is under the covers of the bed and refuses to come out."

Oh… my. It was a very good thing that he had come down here. 

"Perhaps from a school standpoint, we should approach this as if you were the one indisposed. I will return here after I dismiss the meeting. We will say, for the time, that you have taken ill." That would give him time to make a start at sorting things out. 

Severus hesitated, he was loath to ask for any type of aid, inhibited by the Slytherin reflexes that made him so damnably hard to reach. "I am fine, sir. The bruises are… not big."

"Of course. But you are hesitant to leave him, are you not?" Albus prodded gently, continuing at Severus' nod. "So we will dismiss the staff for today. And then I will help you with him, if you wish it. I will be happy to 'sit with him' if it will be helpful."

The expression of relief on Severus' face was transfiguring. "It will. Thank you, Headmaster."

Albus made it a quick trip, dispersing the staff with a look and a few terse words before he headed back to the dungeons. The door wards were still down, so right on the heels of his knock, Albus let himself into Severus' domain. The dark-haired man stood in the doorway to the darkened bedchamber, but turned to face him.

"Well, Severus, I wish I could say your colleagues were disappointed in the sudden cancellation, but I fear that would be a rather heinous untruth. How is Lucius?"

"He is... clear on what he has done. He is..." Severus shook his head, "He is as it was with me, that time. He tried to hang himself with the sash of my robe. Right now he is under the covers of the bed alternately weeping and cursing, or just… trembling."

"Oh, Severus… how long?" How could he think to try to deal with this alone? Did Severus believe that he would refuse to aid Lucius? "When did this happen? Is he violent, now?" 

"Last night. He became violent when I tried to stop him, a little Skele-Gro put my ribs right, but..." Severus chopped the words off and tried to look as if he'd said nothing of the sort.

"Last night? Skele-Gro." Albus gave the younger man a very sharp look. This one could be the most trying…! Deep breath. "And now? Is he controlled?"

"After a fashion. He's devastated that he hurt me and nothing I say will convince him to come out. I'd sleep, but he might..." Severus let his voice trail off and Albus could clearly hear 'help me, please?' in what went unsaid. 

Albus was well and truly alarmed. "Take me to him. Now." 

"It was only a little Skele-Gro, ribs are easy. It's Lucius I'm worried over." Severus led him to the door of the bedchamber, dimly lit by a soft_ lumos_.

"I'll deal with you later. Where is Lucius?"

"He's in there, in the middle of the bed - and I'm fine. Truly." The assertion was spoiled by a jaw-creaking, watery-eyed yawn. "Just don't stick your arm under the blankets – he… bites."

Albus gave the manchild an intent gaze and Severus had the grace to blush. "Indeed. In a moment." Albus entered the bedchamber, calling gently, "Lucius? Lucius, it's Albus Dumbledore… can you hear me?" Making his way to the foot of the bed, he saw only a tight-curled lump trembling under the blankets. The sides rose and fell with breathing, and he sensed the trembling increase, but there was no other response. "Severus, have your tried to give him any potions? What happened?"

"No, sir, no potions. After… he went in there and would not come out. I wanted to be sure he had taken no harm, so I reached under the covers and… he... nipped me. A little."

"Well, I think something is called for. I'm going to put _Requietum_ on him. He'll calm and lie quiet for a time - long enough for me to take a look at you." Albus paused very deliberately and gave Severus a long look. "And I do mean to have a look at you. Severus."

"I'm fine! Lucius needs the help, not me." Severus put on his stubbornness as he would his professor's robe.

"And he'll get it. You know what _Requietum_ will do." Albus ached to remember the circumstances, but it was often the only thing that worked on someone being assaulted by their own mind. "It will calm his mind and enable him to rest from his body's autonomic responses to the terrors. He'll be more rational. It will help him, not harm him."

Severus nodded, responding to the persuasive reassurance. "As you think best, sir. Just... tell him first?"

"Of course, Severus, that was always my intention." These young ones had become accustomed to spells cast upon them without their consent and Albus refused to emulate a bad master. "Lucius? I'm going to place my hand here, on your head… can you feel that? I'm going to give you some calm, Lucius, some peace. I'm going to give you _Requietum,_ and you'll rest for a while. All right?"

The shaking increased, now accompanied by the sound of muffled weeping. 

If nothing else, Albus could wish for the luxury of allowing himself to hate Tom Riddle. Some of the best minds of a generation had been misled and shattered by an egotistical madman, quite outside the ones that were murdered out of hand. To see the strong and intelligent man who was Lucius Malfoy so completely destroyed… Albus would not even wish this kind of hell on his worst enemy.

He rested a hand on Lucius' head and spoke quietly, "There, Lucius, there, this won't be painful, and you'll sleep peacefully. When you awake, you'll be able to think a little straighter. Here we go…  _Requietum!"_

The form under the bedclothes shuddered once, went limp and relaxed, moving into a more natural posture for sleep. Albus suddenly felt every one of his hundred-and-fifty plus years. How had Nicholas Flammel ever handled over six hundred? 

Severus was no longer behind him, Albus went out of the bedroom to find him at his desk, face buried in his hands. What kind of memories was this bringing back for Severus? What old wounds reopened? Severus sought forgiveness as a crusader sought the Grail, never knowing that he had it, Albus had granted it to him long ago. Could this undo the careful work of years it had taken to get Severus to believe in anything other than his own damnation?

Albus moved to stand silent behind him, resting his hands on Severus' shoulders. 

"The Hell of all this is that I know how he feels, Albus." Severus whispered, lifting his head to stare across the room. 

"I know. I know that you do," Albus said gently, "and you, if anyone, will be able to find a way through this, for both of you. But you will be able to do nothing if you allow yourself to be worn to death in the process. Show me those bruises."__

"It is not so bad that you should concern yourself, Albus. All that's left is a few little bruises." Severus turned to face him, and the semantic chase was on.

Albus knew that Slytherins could talk rings around most barristers, and confuse the fanatic so badly that they tripped over their own dogma. Severus did not want to take off his shirt, there was a reason for that, and Albus would find out just what that reason was – by using his own methods.

Albus simply regarded the dark-haired with a steady, neutral stare man until…

"I took Skele-Gro. I'm fine."

Albus narrowed his eyes and adjusted the half-moon glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Must I insist? And I can insist, Severus."

Severus winced, probably remembering the last time his headmaster had insisted on something, and stood to unbutton his black wool coat. "I've had worse! Much worse! Many times. Even as far back as my Quidditch days."

Albus made no response. He simply crossed his arms over his chest, the very image of patient waiting, as Severus worked his way down the twenty buttons on his coat.

"I'm really fine!" He insisted, pausing halfway down.

Albus compressed lips slightly in impatience, but said nothing – the only way to win an argument with Severus was to refuse to be drawn into one. The rest of the buttons were undone and Severus turned his attention, very slowly, to the ten buttons running from wrist to elbow. Taking off the coat, Severus hung it carefully over the back of the chair. As the stubborn manchild removed the cufflinks from his white linen shirt, Albus could almost hear plans being formulated and discarded inside Severus' head.

Unbuttoning the shirt as far as the middle of his sternum, Severus looked at him and said, "Skele-Gro is really very efficacious."

Enough. "Severus. Remove. Your. Shirt." Albus spoke with the voice of He Who Is To Be Obeyed.

"Yes, sir." With a sigh of defeat, Severus slid off his shirt to reveal a ribcage as colorful as a tropical sunset. "They _are_ little bruises, it's just that there are good many of them."

Albus ignored that ridiculousness completely, gasping as his ribs ached in sympathy. If this was mostly healed, the pain must have been beyond excruciating! "Ah, Severus! My dear boy! You will need that poultice, on those. Is there pain when you breathe?"

"Not from the ribs. No. As I said Skele-Gro-"

Another Skele-Gro advertisement. It was time to put his foot down. 

"Enough! Do not temporize with me! I asked you if there was pain when you breathe. If not from the ribs, then from what? How much?"

Severus studied the floor. "From the muscles. Just some. Not much."

The man could try the patience of a saint and make an angel curse! 

"I can understand your desire for privacy in this, Severus, but I will not have you endangering yourself, nor neglecting yourself. Have you the things on hand to properly deal with this?"

"Yes, but they will make me drowsy."

"And this would be a problem how?" Albus' voice was only slightly tart.

"I can't sleep too much, Albus. Lucius might need me."

He smiled at Severus' glare. "Prepare what is necessary, Severus, and we will deal with this. You will sleep. I will sit with him, and with you."

"But-!"

Albus held up his finger and glared at his Potions Master.

"Yes, Headmaster. Right away." 

"That's my boy." Albus allowed himself a little chortle as Severus left the room. It was not so often that a victory was so unequivocal. 

Severus returned, glaring and muttering something about one day winning an argument. Albus pretended to be deaf.

The arnica poultices were prepared, and Severus required help to wrap them firmly. The cotton wrappings also supported the badly bruised musculature and allowed Severus to breathe more easily.

In the act of mixing a potion, Severus paused and looked at Albus. "If I use hawthorne instead of opiate, I won't sleep for as long a time."

"I want you to rest well, Severus. I will not permit you to cripple yourself in your zeal, my boy, understand that!" And if Severus were left to it, he would, as he seemed unable to do anything by halves. "You are simply too important. To me."

Severus ducked his head over the potion, his face distinctly pink, and muttered something along the lines of, "Mutual."

It was as much as he would ever get out of the taciturn Severus, but it was more sincere than hundreds of flowery paeans from anyone else. It quite literally warmed Albus' heart.

Holding up the cup of potion, Severus made a last ditch effort. "I'm not that tired. I could skip the potion and read instead."

"I will not even dignify that with a reply, Severus. Do you have extra blankets? Or shall I summon a House Elf?"

"I have extra blankets." Severus hesitated, then said, "I should sleep beside Lucius, he becomes... unsettled if he wakes alone."

Albus raised an eyebrow, but acquiesced. He had many questions for both men, but answers needs must wait until both were stronger in mind and body. "That will make my own task easier, certainly. And I will be able to see for myself that you sleep, and sleep well." Albus gestured firmly to the bedchamber and shooed a foot-dragging Severus in ahead of him.

There was another minor tussle as to pyjamas versus sleeping in trousers. Albus wound up fetching the blankets whilst Severus changed – the Slytherin could really carry image too far; if he could, he'd have everyone thinking that he roosted upside down with the bats. 

Severus, scowling, lay himself down carefully and pulled up the blankets. "This potion takes about twenty minutes to work and should put me under for eight hours or so. How long should the _Requietum_ keep Lucius out?"

"Twelve hours is usually the minimum, but I can renew the spell if need be." Albus summoned a deep armchair and ottoman to the bedside, rested his hand for a moment on Lucius' head under the blankets, and sat down. "Drink it down, lad."

Severus tipped the goblet and drained it to the bottom, setting the empty vessel on the night table.

"You'll wake me if there is need, Albus?" Severus raised his head just before it hit the pillow.

"Of course."

In a few minutes, before the potion could properly have had a chance to work, Severus was asleep. Albus rose and adjusted the blankets over the man; he had been far more exhausted than he had let on. 

Under the covers, Lucius stirred, sought, and found Severus, moving close before quieting again. 

Albus shook his head silently, stood, and adjusted the blankets about Severus' shoulders. Returning to his chair, he summoned a House Elf to bring tea; he was hoping for a long vigil.

~

Next: Epilogue


	9. Algolagnia: Chapter 9

Dear Readers:

This is the last chapter and I hope that you will enjoy it. I have more Lucius torture in the works, so just keep an eye out for me.

Thank you all for sticking with me on this and for all your reviews, I look forward to writing for you again.

Sincerely,

Chaos

~

Algolagnia

Epilogue

~

**_Another High Ministry Official Found Dead_**

****

**_Linus Sutcliffe, age 43, was found dead yesterday evening in his study at his North Dorking home. The Junior Minister of Education and former Auror has become yet another in a series of eight puzzling and gruesome suicides that have baffled investigators since the first week of August. In keeping with the tragic trend of self-poisonings, the deceased had apparently brewed and drank a pot of tea made from the leaves and flowers of white oleander._**

****

**_The previous victims have eaten amanita mushrooms, ingested the whole fruit of _****strychnos nux vomica, _self-administered a sodium hydroxide purge, guzzled lye, rolled naked in a pit of vipers, eaten kukui nuts "like walnuts' according to one investigator, and even have eaten the poison nematocyst-laden tentacles of the _cubomedusa_ – also called the Australian Box Jelly-fish…_**

****

~

Lucius had been up here five times in the last week, watching the door from an alcove. 

Each time he had turned around, gone back down to the dungeons and brooded. 

Severus said nothing when he did this, but Lucius was deeply aware of time running out. A few days hence and the students would return to classes, including Lucius' own son and many of the children of Lucius' associates. Severus did not have to say anything about time being short, the time period for the 'cure' that could reasonably be expected for Lucius' supposed poisoning was fast approaching. 

_At least I look the part._

Lucius grimaced. Always very conscious of his appearance, he'd found himself avoiding mirrors lately. The few fleeting glimpses he'd had were of a wraith-thin, too pale man. Still, the physical aspect was nothing compared to the emotional one – which was Hell. 

A Hell - that was to some extent - mitigated by Severus. The details of that week following the Dream were fuzzy, but Lucius knew that he had spent a good bit of time under _Requietum_. Sometimes he listened to his own thoughts, sorting through them as one might sort documents by type. Other times he looked at memories with an odd detachment that made him feel as if he were peering into someone else's pensieve. Severus sat with him often, or Dumbledore, worried that Lucius might try again to end his life. 

Lucius considered. No. He did not want to die by his own hand. Calm and clear – if not steady – in mind, what Lucius wanted was…

Something he had no name to describe.

The urge to be back in the dungeons, back in a safe lair, took him and he turned for the narrow, winding stairs that would take him there. 

~ 

Fawkes moved on his perch, trilling as he sensed someone in the passage and called his wizard's attention to it.

Albus Dumbledore sighed as he laid aside his quill - he no longer needed to scry for the identity of his reticent visitor.  Lucius Malfoy was lurking in the corridor for the fifth time this week and probably about to bolt for the dungeons and Severus out of pure Slytherin reflex. It appeared that he was going to have to – very gently – force the issue.

With a gesture, the staircase screwed down and Albus went to it with some haste, catching Lucius just as he made a not-quite dart for the dungeon stairway.

"Lucius!" Albus smiled, "Lucius, I am very happy to see you! You're looking better. Are you quite well?"

It was no untruth. Lucius in the depths of his despair had been the very image of death. The man before him now was pale and heartrendingly thin, but the gaze was clear and focused. Lucius' movements, though reserved and cautious, were those of a well man.

"I... am." The eyes hooded from reflex, the words were as guarded as their speaker's expression. 

"Please, come inside." Albus half-gestured, half-herded the reluctant man ahead of him on the staircase. "I was just about to send for tea; would you join me? I _am_ happy to see you, here. The last time I saw you I was very concerned."

"I... remember. Somewhat." 

Albus had seen him in a terrible state – and for a Slytherin, such naked weakness was a worse thing than some deaths. Lucius had been bent – as Severus had once been – upon attaining his own destruction. Unable to see any respite from his own mind, Lucius had sought death. It had taken much _Requietus_, much talking to Lucius as he lay in trance state to even make a start at repairs.

"Severus has been very concerned. He has spoken to me about you, more than once. I am glad to see you improved." 

It took a gentle crowding to actually get Lucius into the office, the poor boy was as nervous as a cat in a room full of dogs. 

"I... Severus has been... always... rather protective of me. He is... I… I am very fond of him." The last words were packed close together and hurried off Lucius' tongue, but no less sincere for the haste.

Albus continued to herd Lucius, bringing him to an alcove with a pair of deep wing chairs in front a fireplace, facing each other over a small table. "And he is very fond of you. Indeed, he cherishes you as he always has. These last weeks have been very difficult for him."

Lucius' voice was very quiet, "I know. That is, to a great extent, my doing." He regarded the wing chair as if it might bite him. "I... regret the all of the pain that I have caused him."

"Perhaps. But that matters little, now. What matters is that you are improved, and he can be relieved. Was it he that sent you here, to me?" Albus spoke to the table, "Tea, please, for two."

The tea and cakes materialized on the table. Lucius' gaze flickered to the cakes, the Malfoy sweet-tooth was legendary – this might be enough to tempt the man into sitting down. 

"Severus suggested that I might talk with you," Lucius sat stiffly on the edge of the chair, "over some... things." 

"Anything at all. Had you anything in particular you wished to discuss?" While he had only the greatest sympathy for the blond man, he could not make this last step for him. This has to come from Lucius, and him alone. "Lemon? Sugar? Cream?"

"Lemon. Please." 

Albus passed the cup. "You know, Severus is dear to me. I love him as I would my own son. You are always welcome here, and anything you may require you shall have, if it is within my capacity to give."

"He regards you well." Lucius studied the lemon floating in his cup. "We are not very expressive with... others, we of Slytherin. I am… grateful… for your hospitality, as well. I have done nothing to deserve it, yet you have given it. Thank you."

"I wonder about that, Lucius, I think that Severus saw something in you that was very deserving indeed, and worked very hard to restore it." Even when Albus had doubts, Severus had never wavered in that respect. "Have you given any thought to where you will go from here?"

"No. None. Severus snaps at me about spoon-feeding and then reads aloud from 'Potions Quarterly." There was a long pause before Lucius spoke again. "I worry that he sees something that is not there. I... seduced him when he was very young and that may alter his perceptions."

And hadn't Albus been furious when he'd heard about that. Twelve! The boy had been barely pubescent! Then again, Lucius had only been fourteen when his own somewhat unwilling initiation into the pleasures of the flesh had taken place. In Lucius' mind, the fact that he had seduced Severus – manipulated the boy into being a willing participant – had made it all right. The only thing that saved Lucius from a levinbolt was the fact that there was some genuine feeling other than lust involved – even if the primary expression of those emotions was done physically – and that feeling had continued.

"I get no sense that his feelings for you have changed over the years, Lucius. If anything, he has been determined, even partisan, on your behalf. He makes no attempts to excuse you from responsibility for your actions, but believes that you were misled." 

"I... hardly know what to think anymore. Everything I believed was wrong. I cannot regret anything I have done with Severus, other than to cause him such horrible grief and handing him to Riddle. I believed. And what I believed was a lie." 

Lucius was at the moment, a lost man. The hollow tone of the words, the emptiness of expression all told Albus that the man of absolute faith had nothing left in which to believe. It was also telling that Lucius referred to Voldemort by his given name, now, instead by any title of respect. Voldemort, the Dark Lord, had one less person who feared to speak his true name.

"Ah, if only your power were so absolute. I think Severus would be horrified at your sense of responsibility for his decisions." Severus would be indignant, and vocally so. The man was almost pathologically withdrawn, so anything that could send him out of his shell was something of which to take note. "You were – and are - most important to him, it is true, but his decisions were his own and he made them as you made yours. What happened after that was terribly unfortunate for all. It is hard not to feel guilty when things go so horribly wrong, but there is an opportunity here for you as well as for Severus."

"For Evan and Charles, it was fatal. I was responsible..." 

This was something different, Albus felt his eyebrows ascend into his hairline. "You were responsible? You handed them to Voldemort, kicking and screaming, totally against their will?"

Softly, "I was supposed to look out for them."

The root of the problem, here. Severus had been right; those boys had become a responsibility that Lucius had never laid aside. "Oh, Lucius, if only it were possible to look out for another and have their best interests totally in your hands! But I do not believe that you willingly handed them over to their deaths. That is not the story I have heard. Why is your story so different?"

"I... they looked up to me. We all took the Mark together, and I..." Lucius closed his eyes, his words laced with a profound grief. "Riddle wanted two to undertake a mission that was actually a planned martyrdom, and I handed him Evan and Charles. I didn't know, but that does not excuse the fact that I..."

_That I recommended Evan over Severus._ Albus could all but hear it.

"Of course it is not an excuse, Lucius. There is no excuse, but this terrible burden of guilt will paralyze you unless you can find a way through it to see a new direction. That is what Severus has been trying to do for you, these last weeks - to help you see that there is more left of you than simply a terrible past. Can you tell me that Severus has failed in his task?"

Lucius rejected that violently. "NO! But how can I ever shut my eyes again, and not see what I have done! How can I look at myself and ever see anything but…"

"It is also quite possible that you will, in time, use your eyes to see the person who still is, and to see the one who thinks the world of you. It is possible, too, to allow your mind to see the true monster as the one who betrayed you both."

"Severus says that he sometimes hates you for keeping him sane, and he was an innocent compared to what I have done. If Riddle is the monster, what does that make of me?"

"It makes you simply one more man who allowed himself to be horribly misled. You are not the first, nor will you be the last. Your real burden is to take the realization and do something with it. Something that will be good for you, and for him, and for them - to show that you still think of them and hold their memories important. To show Severus that they are still important to you."

They sat in silence for a time, Lucius' gaze on his tea and face utterly still as he let himself consider new possibilities. Albus sat back, waiting. Haste, forcing events, could cause him to make a mistake with this one – and for the sake of them all he could not afford to make even the slightest.

"Can you tell me, when Charles first came to you, what he said? Severus said that was your tale to tell."

Albus sighed, it pained him deeply that he had not been able to prevent the deaths of Charles Wilkes and Evan Rosier. He had held such hopes when Charles had first approached him that he would be able to bring them back. The events that led to their alienation were painful to Albus, in part because his own actions had driven the Slytherins into a state of mind that led them to the deep distrust of others. 

"Voldemort's service had become a great burden to those young men. They felt, already, that what they were being asked to do was simply not conscionable." Charles had not given details as to their research, but his face and eyes had been deeply shadowed. "They had gone to him seeking knowledge, seeking education, and yes, seeking approval, and had received them all at a terrible price. However, Charles never spoke of you, and never named you. It was not you that Charles blamed, but themselves, for choosing such a terrible path and paying such a terrible price."

"And Evan and Severus? How said they?" Lucius' voice was barely above a whisper, his shoulders tight.

"I had no chance to speak with Evan, and Severus came to me, as you know, only after Evan's death. Severus spoke of you only with regret that you seemed so far beyond his reach when he wanted so much for you to come to him." Albus knew that Lucius would have preferred to hear that Severus had cursed him – and Severus had, much later, only to retract it and curse Lucius again, doing the work of grief and healing. "Severus did not know what your situation was, or your feelings. He knew only that he felt you were lost to him - and that in his opinion Voldemort's ultimate revenge had been against you. That is why he has worked, these past years, to try to find a way to point this out to you. It has been a difficult task for him." He then added with the utmost gentleness, "It is no sin to love another to the point of madness. The sin comes when the loved one takes that love and twists it to his own ends."

Elbows resting on knees, he buried his face in his hands. "I did that, and more. I would have done anything to have him with me, and instead I nearly killed him. I love... have always loved Severus." Lucius raised his head and looked for the first time into Albus gaze. "What he is doing, especially now could well get him killed in a way that would make Evan's death look like a stroll in the garden."

Still the concern, and the love, even after all the pain of the last weeks. Severus had been right, there was something to save and revive.

"Yes, it could. And Severus is well aware of this - but this is also his choice, and he makes it because he feels that he can, perhaps, bring good from what he does. He has, finally, come to terms with not being able to bring Evan back." And that coming to terms had taken years and years. "But he has always hoped that there would be a way to bring you back to yourself, if not to him and his love, rather than Voldemort's. I assure you, Lucius, if I felt it were vengeance that motivated Severus, he would never set foot again in Voldemort's presence. That desire for vengeance would doom him."

"Volde... Riddle is a jealous master. More jealous than the Abrahamic god, that one."

 Lucius was quiet for a very long time and Albus waited with the patience that only a century and a half of life could bring. He could see the tension winding Lucius' shoulders tighter and tighter until Albus' head began to ache in sympathy.

"There are many in his service who do not have the Mark." The words came out on a shaky breath and for a moment, Lucius looked as if he expected to be struck dead.

Albus simply nodded once, waiting, knowing that this would be painful for Lucius to say and for himself to hear.

When no lighting bolt came to blast him where he sat, Lucius spoke again. "Not many you might suspect. Not all Slytherin - though all are purebloods."

Another nod. Lucius had to do this on his own, Albus could not coerce or encourage him, only reassure and support. 

"Pettigrew was not given the mark until he gave the Potters to Riddle. Severus tells me he had something to do with trying to hide them. In a way, he blames himself for their deaths. He did not know Pettigrew was recruited." Lucius stared hard at the spot on the carpet. "Sirius Black," he spat the name, "is innocent of the Potter's betrayal and of their murders. He was never a Death Eater, he was never even approached – it was Peter Pettigrew who sought us out." A pause and a defiant look, "I still believe with my whole heart that he intended to murder Severus, and nothing short of a questioning under Veritaserum will ever convince me otherwise."

"I know that Severus will never totally forgive himself for what he feels are his 'crimes' – but I do as much as I can to convince him otherwise. As for the matter of Sirius Black, your words will clear him of that particular crime."

Yes, there was something worth saving when Lucius could bring himself to clear the name of a man he hated. They sat in silence again, Albus letting the blond Slytherin feel his way in this strange new world.

"There are... many others. Powerful others." Lucius faltered, and fell silent, then, "First this; I want your word that you will protect Draco and Narcissa. After your word, which Severus accepts as Divine Writ, I will tell you. I love them, and would not want to see them take the brunt of revenge against me."

"You would have my word, Lucius? On what? That your wife and son will be protected, you need have no fears at all. They will be welcome to everything that I can give them. I would extend the same offer to you, whether you choose to talk to me at this time or not." Albus felt a deep sadness, it was a cynical belief that everything offered came with a hook, and Lucius had never seen anything in his life to let him believe any other way. He had never let himself see until now. "As you said, that Severus does trust my word; I would like you to come to trust it as well." 

Lucius' head jerked up, eyes wide and blood draining from his face. 

"Lucius? Are you quite all right? Lucius?" For a moment Albus was afraid that the man would faint dead away on his office floor.

"Severus said you would protect them but I couldn't see..." Lucius' voice shook with emotion, "I have been your enemy, worked for your disgrace, for the downfall of everything you espouse and believe. Why? Why would you protect them for nothing?"

"Why not? As I said before, Lucius, it is as simple as that. They are valuable because they are who they are. As are you."

With a deep breath that was almost a sob, Lucius closed his eyes and began to speak. "The Aurors have been infiltrated. I know of seven. - Littlebrook, Scully, Moran, Beauchamp, Burns, Smythe-Holly, and Goode. Severus said he... took care of the one that did for Evan and Charles. I did not know of him, he did not have the Mark."

"Yes, Lucius. I hear you." Another one brought home. Another soul that would come to know light. 

"In Fudge's cabinet..."

The quill on Albus' desk wrote busily. It was both better and worse than he had thought, but with this, they have a chance to stop a great deal of harm from ever coming to be. Still, he is concerned, Lucius' face is still very pale, but it is as if each name, each detail given of the workings of the top echelon of Voldemort's organization takes with it some of the terrible tension, eases an atom of the load of guilt that Lucius bears for his actions. It goes on for hours, Lucius' voice and the scratching of quill on parchment is unbroken. Later, Albus will ask for details on this or that, but for now, he simply lets Lucius continue to speak as he will.

Finally, Lucius was limp and silent in his chair, eyes closed and drained.

"I understand. Anything else?" He put a hand on Lucius' shoulder, judging the contact finely. The other man was too proud to accept much comfort yet.

Lucius opened his eyes and sighed, "You are hated - deeply - by Riddle, though he gives no reason for the grudge. More than to kill the Potter boy, more than his own pureblood army, he wants you dead and Hogwarts to be his. He speaks of it with a level of obsession that is... Severus compared it to a Muggle story of revenge and madness." Lucius frowned, "It was about a ship's captain and a white whale? An American wrote it – Neville Herman?"

"Ah. I think I am flattered, being compared to Moby Dick." Severus had apparently been sampling Muggle literature a little more often than he'd let on. "Ehm, no, it is Herman Melville, I believe . . . and yes, I am aware of his absolute hatred for me, and it is not difficult to guess his intentions with regard to the school. Lucius -- what does Voldemort know of you, of your 'illness?' "

"We were summoned and neither Severus or I came, so Riddle sent the Rat - Pettigrew." Lucius sighed again but smiled, "Severus cannot lie very well at all, but he can brew a good tale out of whole truth."

"Yes, he can. It makes for interesting conversations, sometimes, that ability of his. " And aggravating ones, when Severus was being stubborn about something. "But my question is, Lucius, does Voldemort know that your feelings toward him have… evolved?"

"I do not think so, but it is very difficult to tell. He is... changed from who he once was. It appears he is questioning the inner circle about my supposed poisoning, and finding out some things that he would rather not. I look as if I have been very ill and as long as Severus can keep stretching that truth, it will hold. There was a considering pause, "You will want to see to your wardstones. Pettigrew should not have been able to get by them undetected."

Albus gave a grave nod, "I will see to it immediately." Now to see if Lucius would be willing, "You could provide us all with a very great service if you were willing to stand at Severus' side, before Voldemort."

Lucius was silent for so long that Albus felt a ripple of uncertainly. 

"He trusts few of us, and Severus is high on the list for… having his loyalty tested." Lucius gave Albus a keen look. "He has kept you informed of Riddle's methods? Or is he brewing that, as well? I do what I can for him. I have a small talent at healing."

"I trust that he has not been. I would have to be stern with him were he to attempt to obfuscate on that score." Still, it might do to have a little talk with Severus, and possibly a long talk with Poppy as well. "And you are trusted still, where Severus is not? You are certain of this? To what extent?"

"I am, but only so far. Tending me in my illness will raise Severus in Riddle's regard and I can shield him better for that. I do not think that he will have to endure Cruciatus again after this, but beyond that I cannot say. I would keep him safely away, if I could, but that might put him in even more danger than he is already."

"That shield matters greatly." And he was going to have that talk with Severus. Cruciatus had some long-term effects if not properly treated. "This healing skill you have -- does this give you time alone with Voldemort?"

"He is never alone, there are always three of us with him at minimum. I have not used this skill around him, for my own reasons."

"I see." What those reasons were, Albus could wait to find out. "But if he were to tell you of any threat to this school, or the people within it, you could report this to me? Might he talk of this, in your presence?"

"He would - and he has - but his plans all start with you being dead. As you are quite obviously not dead..." Lucius shrugged.

"Yes, but has he anything particular in mind? It would be helpful to know. But we must tread carefully here, or he will soon have you on the list of those whose loyalty is in question."

"Riddle favors assassination, but he is not picky about methods. The only time he goes personally into a fight is when he is making a point or is certain that he can win. He might well order Severus to kill you in order to prove his loyalty - or might have before my supposed illness."

It was sobering to think that Voldemort might throw away a brilliant mind just to make a point. Sobering, yes, but not at all surprising. 

"That would destroy Severus, figuratively as well as literally, but I can assure you that I am not without protection. For now, I will take your advice and strengthen the school's defenses." With utmost directness, Albus made an offer. "If you would be willing to stand before Voldemort with both eyes and ears wide open, all of us would be very much in your debt. And have an ear for anything he should slip to you about Severus, as well. I do not wish him harmed in any way for what he does, and if I am concerned I will pull him to safety instantly."

"I will inform you. I would be here very often, were Severus and I to renew our… former habits." Lucius shook his head, an expression of baffled amazement on his handsome face. "I still can't understand how he can forgive me. I just don't understand, but he does."

"I will be in your debt for what you may discover. I will look forward to working with you in this, and your presence at this school - in whatever function - will be always welcome." He gently squeezed the man's shoulder, "Lucius, you do not need to understand it - you simply have to accept it."

"I will speak with him, about many things." Lucius shook his head, rising to go, "About things that should have been, and of those that might yet be."

Albus smiled warmly and walked him to the door, "Speak with him, yes. I think you will find a rare depth of feeling in him, and a strength to add to your own. Please, come see me when you wish, this office will always be open to you."

There was a glimmer in those silver eyes. Something was taking root, finding something there to nourish it, and preparing to grow. 

"I… will likely see you soon. Good night, Headmaster."

"Good night, Lucius."

~

The Mark burned black and the summoned came in answer to it. New bodies filled the former gaps in the Inner Circle, yet two spaces remained empty. 

It had been over two months, and the Dark Lord's patience was wearing thin. If the two did not come tonight…

There was a single loud popping noise and two forms clad in black robes and cloaks, faces concealed by featureless silvery masks appeared. 

One wobbled precariously, then was steadied by the other.

"Say 'I told you so…' "

"No need. You said it for me."

The original members of the Inner Circle chuckled at the tart exchange even as they breathed silent prayers of thanks to whatever gods might listen. 

"Lucius. Severus." The ghastly thing that could no longer be called a man stirred, gesturing them to him with deadman-white fingers. "It has been a long time since you have been among us. Are you restored to health, Lucius?"

One figure removed its mask, and the gaunt face of Lucius Malfoy peered from the depths of the cowl. The Circle stood silent in shock. It appeared that Pettigrew had spoken the truth – probably for the first time in his life. The only thing Lucius needed was a scythe over one shoulder and he'd look like Thanatos Himself.

"I am, my Lord."

Severus, still masked, coughed as if he begged to differ.

"And you, Severus?" The question was edged with menace. Of all of them, Severus had been the one to feel most often their Lord's wrath – he was the example, the scapegoat. 

Severus drew back his cowl and removed his mask to show a face as drawn as Lucius'. 

"As patients go, he's a prick, my Lord."

"And you have all the charming bedside manner of a Hairy MacBoon, Severus," came Lucius' retort.

The thing that was no longer a man smiled, coming to stand between the two men and lead them with his thin arms around their shoulders. "You are both indeed restored. Now come, much has happened in your regrettable absences…"

~

Lucius stood beside Severus in the Circle. The new order of things had Lucius at Riddle's right hand, with Severus as second in power – and very obviously with Lucius.

As if a galleon-sized purple love-bite on the neck could mean anything else. 

True to his word, Dumbledore had moved to protect Narcissa and Draco. Draco was now attending Beauxbatons on the pretext of searching for a bride – one to whom he was not related. Draco for his part was not objecting. Narcissa was in also in France, ostensibly visiting with some distant cousins and standing by to handle marriage negotiations. She and Severus had a long talk prior to her departure, ending with Narcissa hugging him fiercely. Lucius again counted himself a lucky man to have such a good wife. 

Lucius felt calm as he had not, he realized, for many years. Dumbledore, true to his word, kept his office door open and Lucius availed himself of it many times. The nightmares still came, the doubts, and the blasts of debilitating fear with them – but he had an anchor in Severus who had sailed this course before him. 

Severus - his lover and his beloved - who had labored for years for the chance to free Lucius from his own self-delusion. They had talked of things that should have been and things that might yet be – and had reached agreement. If to love and be loved in return was a great gift, then the loyalty Severus had shown was a treasure past all earthly price. 

Yet, Lucius thought that perhaps the greatest gift Severus could have given him was not love or freedom or truth - but the way he gave Lucius to attain them for himself.

Riddle moved, bringing Lucius' attention back into focus, "Now, there are many who set themselves – foolishly – against us…"

He spoke and Lucius listened, nodding, as he stored it all away for later. This would be his penance and his penitence, and for the salvation already given, he undertook them gladly.

~

The End

~

Author's note: Once again, thanks to Vardya for her channeling of Albus Dumbledore.


End file.
